


Interplanetary Romance

by Wlammy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adventure, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Fluff, Gen, Happy Ending, Inspired by Fanfiction, Marvel Universe, Mild Angst, Mystery, One Year Later, Outer Space, Planets, Post-Season/Series 07, Science Fiction, Skrull(s), lesbians in love, one year later spin off, train to alaska
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:27:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27247270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wlammy/pseuds/Wlammy
Summary: This story takes place roughly 3 years after the season 7 finale, at the same time as the epilogue of the story this is based on.An adventure in space!Daisy's Johnson's little (or older?) sister Kora fell in love with Allison Torres, who she met on a mission to space. After 2,5 happy years together, outer space calls to Allison once more.
Relationships: Kora (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) & Skye | Daisy Johnson, Kora Johnson & Allison Torres, Skye | Daisy Johnson & Daniel Sousa, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marvelsquake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelsquake/gifts).
  * Inspired by [One Year Later](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25900645) by [marvelsquake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvelsquake/pseuds/marvelsquake). 



> IMPORTANT NOTE: This story is a spin off to One Year Later, the amazing Dousy pregnancy/baby fic written by Train To Alaska (and beta'd by me)!  
> If you somehow have not read that yet, go read it first! <3

The building was dead silent. All that could be heard, were the sounds of a baker and his son stocking a truck with their freshly baked bread, a couple of streets away.

The sky coloured a misty pastel blue, and sleepy birds started to open their eyes in preparation for their morning song.

On the fifth floor, in the small corner apartment, Kora Johnson and Allison Torres were sound asleep, their two clouds of black hair spread out on the pillows and their legs intertwined, when an alarm brutally disturbed the peace. Like a frog catching a bug, an arm shot out from underneath the blanket and pressed the snooze button.

“Hmm.. is it 4:30 already?”, Kora wondered hoarsely.

“Damn it, I tried not to wake you”, Torres sputtered, snuggling closer to her girlfriend. “I was gonna get ready and then bring you breakfast in bed…”

“You’ve done enough, Ally, come here,” Kora waved away the muttered protest and wrapped her arms around Torres. With gentle fingers, she caressed Ally’s cheek, and lovingly kissed her sleepy lips.

“Hey, don’t you start…”, she chuckled, upon feeling tears touching her cheeks.

“I can’t help it…”, Torres sobbed, “I’m gonna miss you so much!”

Kora, ignoring the pit in her stomach, kissed away the tears, and decisively repeated the phrases they had been telling each other for weeks now.

“You have trained to be an astronaut for years. You worked three jobs to put yourself through university. NASA was very impressed with your paper on circular durability as seen on Augnum. You want this and deserve this, and… what else?”

Torres smiled, and added the final bit of their mantra. “And it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you more than anything.”

“Exactly”, Kora nodded, not being able to prevent a lonely tear from finding its way down her face. Torres brushed away the tear, her green eyes now wide awake.

“I _do_ love you more than anything, this is just something I have to do,” she said.

Kora nodded. “I know, and I respect your decision, now kiss me and go shower!”

Torres happily obliged and hopped out of bed. “Go back to sleep, babe, I’ll wake you before I leave, I promise.”

Kora sat up in bed, her oversized shirt exposing one shoulder and her hair pointing in every direction. She didn’t consider going back to sleep for one second, and went to make breakfast in the kitchen.

In the bathroom, Torres looked at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. It had been a rough couple weeks, deciding whether to go back to space on a mission, and how to tell her girlfriend of 2,5 years she would be away for at least 2 whole months… She felt guilty at first, but realised she had to go, or she would end up blaming Kora for her unfulfilled dreams, which didn’t seem fair to either of them. Kora, albeit angry and in tears, finally agreed, and looked at it from her perspective. In a way, Kora had also expressed being proud of her, and over the weeks, it was Torres who grew weepy and hesitant at the idea of leaving, and it had been Kora who encouraged her to follow her dream.

* * *

With her foot dangling from the barstool by the kitchen counter, Kora smiled and pushed a steaming cup of coffee towards Torres, whose usually wild curly hair was now tamed in a braid. She wore the grey S.H.I.E.L.D. sweater, combat pants and the pair of boots that got delivered last week.

“I put the itinerary on the fridge”, she nodded at the refrigerator’s door.

“I saw,” Kora said, and laughed “I also memorised it, so no need to worry. Two weeks in quarantine and prep training with the team, then take off, 4 days to the jumping point and then 40 days of research in the Weston Quadrant, and then -“

“Okay yes, I might have gone on about it a bit much,” Torres interrupted with a chuckle. “I’ll be home by either your birthday or by Christmas, assuming there won’t be another forcefield, of course.”

Kora kicked her playfully, “don’t even joke about that!”

They silently ate their breakfast, hours earlier than usual, but in the same way as always: Ally leaning on the counter, eating oatmeal with one eye on her phone, Kora lazily peeling an orange and eating the pieces one by one. The scent of fresh coffee and fruit smelled like home to them, and Torres forced herself to think of anything else but the painful wondering about how long it would be before she’d smell the orange peel again.

She looked at her watch. “Carpool will be here any moment now.”

Kora swallowed, she refused to make it any harder on both of them by crying at this moment. She got off the stool and cupped Torres’ face. “You’re gonna do great, Ally. Bring me a souvenir?”

All Torres could do was nod and fold her arms tightly around this small woman she loved so much. A trail of kisses on Kora’s bare shoulder wrote “come with me”, but all she said was “goodbye, babe”.

Kora lingered, squeezing Ally’s hands, and then accompanied her into the hallway, where her bag, packed lunch and uniform were waiting. One last kiss, and the door closed behind her.

On the elevator ride down, Torres cried a few tears, feeling a strange mix of sad and grateful. The last time time she went on a mission, she was full of excitement and curiosity, leaving behind her sweet supportive Catholic parents and siblings, and student loans. She always had been a sweet and open spirit, attracting people with her sweet smile and dimples, but working three jobs and having a clear goal in mind, it didn’t leave much time or energy for friendships, and the boys asking her out were barking up the wrong tree anyway.

This time, however, she felt the pull of life on earth as well, making it harder to just get back into training and leaving it all behind. She did not expect to fall in love so fast, or so deeply, or to be so easily taken in by Kora’s sister and family when she did.

The air was crisp and the first pink streaks appeared in the sky. With her duffle bag flung over her shoulder, Torres breathed in deep, excited to start a new adventure.

Perfectly on time, a black car arrived and a door swung open.

“Good morning, Torres, hop in!”, a deep voice said.

“Director Mack?”, Torres recognised the tall man behind the wheel to her surprise.

“I have some business to take care off near the travel base, so I may as well drop you off,” he explained, and Torres smiled, quickly tossing her bag and uniform on the backseat.

The three hours it took to drive to the base were filled with Mack humming along to the radio and telling anecdotes about his son Eli.

“With all due respect to Daisy and Sousa, I do hope this mission happens without any unexpected pregnancies on board”, Mack chuckled.

Torres nodded, still a little shy to be in the car with Mack, one on one. The sunrise was beautiful, and she felt like she was in a movie when she rested her head on her hand and stared at the puffy clouds in the blue sky. Soon she would be behind those clouds, up in the vast darkness of space, and the thought gave her butterflies.

“Here we are, Torres. Have a safe journey and return home to us, alright?”

“Yes sir,” Ally nodded, and thanked him for the ride. She wanted to urge him to look after her family, but by looking in his kind eyes, she knew he would. She shook his large hand and got out of the car.

“Allison?”, a cheerful Scottish voice came from behind her as she bent over to put her jacket in her bag.

She turned around and looked into the face of a young black man she remembered from her bio chemistry studies. He was wearing a bright red sweater and running shoes.

“Dougal?”, she recalled just in time for it to become awkward.

He grinned and said “Hey, you remembered! How are ye? Here for the Weston mission?”

Torres nodded and smiled. Dougal Abernathy was top of their class, and suffered from a case of incurable optimism, making him equally fun and exhausting to be around.

“I didn’t know you were training to be an astronaut?”, she remarked, while walking to the base with her things.

“Oh here, let me help,” he said, and draped her uniform over his arm. “Well yes, when they recruited you, they talked to me too, but I wasn’t ready to leave my hometown yet. My sister just had her bairn and I wanted to be near, you see. I have been in training for the past two years, though. I’ll be assisting… well, you, I s’ppose.”

His explanation halted when a red haired man approached them.

“Captain Masters,” they greeted him politely.

“Abernathy, Torres, good morning. Debriefing in 10. Abernathy, show Torres her bunk.”

“Yes sir”, Dougal said, and winked at Torres behind Master’s back and whispered “I’m sure he’ll thaw out a bit once we’re in space, do ye reckon?”

Torres thought back of their year on Z3 and shook her head. “I do believe I saw him smile once, but he wasn’t in charge back then,” she remarked, but added “he is a good guy though, I’m sure he’ll make for a great captain.”

* * *

Two weeks flew by. Torres had set a solid routine from day one, consisting of a pre-breakfast run, studying her books, lifting weights and passing every emergency drill with flying colours, much to Masters’ satisfaction. In the evenings, she would video chat with Kora or play boardgames with Dougal and sometimes the others on base.

On day 4, a new team member arrived, Elin Eriksson, recruited all the way from Stockholm, and Dougal was smitten from the very first moment he laid eyes on her. She had pale blue eyes with white eyelashes, and revealed crooked teeth when she smiled. “Don’t be creepy to the Swede, please,” Torres whispered when she noticed Dougal was staring. She wanted to convince him how unprofessional relationships were between team members, but realised her hypocrisy in that same moment, and giggled. Flying and landing a plane with a girl she was in love with, it surely made the trip more fun, but definitely less professional.

Besides, Douglas was an optimist, not an idiot.

On the morning of day 6, presumably woken up by her footsteps on day 5, Elin quietly joined Torres on her morning run, her slightly square jaw clenched in determination as her short blonde hair bounced on her forehead.

“Again tomorrow?”, Torres asked after their joined run, while offering her co-pilot-to-be a towel from the stack.

Elin looked up, and said “yes please. I tried to swim, but Abernathy is in the pool every hour, it seems, and he is… very social.”

Ally laughed, “He sure does like to swim. And to talk. He does his running in the evening, I believe?”

They shrugged and agreed to run together at the crack of dawn every day, until take off.

Some mornings they would exchange a few words, on others they’d race each other and arrive back at the base, gasping for air and gulping down water.

On day 11, captain Masters joined them unexpectedly and silently, and when he ran past them, Elin rolled her eyes and chuckled softly with Torres about his competitive nature.

“Men”, she said with her Swedish accent, and effortlessly sprinted past the redhead, leaving their astonished captain to eat her dust.

By the time Torres caught up to Masters, he said “a team well in shape, that is what I like to see.”

Torres hid a snicker and said “of course, sir”.

Masters, despite himself, saw the sparkle in Ally’s eyes and couldn’t hide a smirk. He nodded, “Well done, Torres. See you and Eriksson at breakfast.”

* * *

On day 14, also known as the day before take off, Masters had given everyone the afternoon and evening off, which to Dougal’s delight meant they could order take out and relax with a bad movie if they so desired. Quarantine had been fairly doable, getting to know the team helped against the loneliness and preparing for the mission was mostly exciting.

The usually quiet hallway leading to the dormitories was now alive with chatter in multiple languages. One of the mechanics spoke on the phone in Chinese, the medic in Spanish, and Torres was surprised to hear Elin talk so fast; in a minute she had said more in Swedish than they heard her say in English, all the days combined. Dougal winked at Torres and disappeared into his room with a cheesy pizza.

Just when Ally was about to sit down and unpack her take out dinner, she heard someone say “Damn it!” and a fist banging on a table. Concerned, but mostly curious, she peeked around the door. The sound seemed to be coming from the kitchen, and she went to take a look, still clutching her bag of Chinese food. It was Masters, sitting at the kitchen table, his broad shoulders slumped over, with his phone in shatters on the floor.

“Sir?”, Torres announced her presence. “Is everything alright?”

Masters, startled by the sudden voice, looked over his shoulder, relieved to see it was his number 1 team member. “Sorry to have disturbed you, Torres. What can I do for you?”

Torres shook her head. “Nothing, sir, I was wondering if everything is in order for the mission.”

“Take off is as planned. It’s a personal matter.”

Impatient by his uptight behaviour, Torres put her Chinese food on the counter, walked up to her captain and picked up the pieces of his phone.

“Do you want to borrow my phone, sir? I won’t need it for another hour.” It was a total lie, seeing as Kora and Daisy were waiting for her call any moment now, but something in the tightness around Masters’ mouth told her he really needed it more than she did. Before he could deny her offer, she unlocked the phone and put it on the table.

“You can just slide it under the door of my bunk when you’re done,” she said with a friendly smile, and walked away.

Arrived at her room, she realised she left her food in the kitchen, and hesitated for a moment before deciding to quickly to go and get it.

With an unknown warmth in his voice, she heard Masters promise he’d be home soon.

“Yes, really. Pinky promise. I’ll be back before you know it. The team all works together and we keep each other safe, Molly, honestly.”

Hidden behind the door, Torres felt confident she did the right thing by lending him her phone, and decided to leave her food on the counter.

Back at her bunk, she checked the clasps and zippers on her bags, all carefully packed and prepared for tomorrow. From a front pocket, she pulled the few photographs she was allowed to bring. The bunks on the ship were a lot smaller than the ones on Zephyr-3, and only a certain amount of personal items was allowed.

She spread the pictures out on her bed and slowly looked at them, one by one. This was all the Kora she was going to have in space, apart from hopefully a few recorded video messages, and with her heart glowing in her chest, Torres let herself be pulled in by Kora’s deep brown eyes and cheerful smile. She smiled and shook her head at the Christmas picture from last year, where the youngest niece, victim to Kora’s affinity for national holidays, was dressed up in an elf costume. Torres didn’t feel too bad for the baby, though, considering the admiring gaze she sent a beaming Kora.

Her stream of adoring thoughts got interrupted by a firm knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said, still laying on her stomach on the bed, assuming it was Dougal with his update on the family in Glasgow.

Not as resolute as his knocking, Masters stepped into the room.

“Your phone,” he muttered, while she hastily sat up straight and adjusted her sweater.

“Thank you, sir.”

In his other hand, he held a tray with her Chinese food on it.

“I, um… heated it up for you,” he said, and put it on her spotless desk.

“Have some rest, Torres, see you at take off.”

“Yes, sir, thank you. Good night.”

The second the door closed behind him, she lurched for her phone and video called her girlfriend.

“Babe!,” Kora’s relieved voice filled the room before her camera was even on. “We have been waiting, is everything okay?” Her smiling face appeared on the screen and Torres exhaled and answered “Everything is fine! I even have take out! Fortune cookies and everything!”

Kora’s sister yelled from a distance, “is that Allison? Tell her hi from me, I’m in a … diaper situation.”

Torres chuckled and shouted at her phone, “Hi Daisy!!”

Kora giggled over her shoulder at her sister and then turned back to face Torres. “So what’s up, how is your last evening on earth?”

“I was actually looking at pictures of you, like the sap that I am. I don’t know if it’s the quarantine or what, but it’s like that Toto song, I can almost hear your laugh coming from your photograph… God, I’m corny today…”

With a frown, Kora tried to recall what song this could possibly be. “Babe, I only know ‘Africa’… which Toto song?”

Unashamed, Torres started singing “ _I… can’t stop loving you_ ”, and laughed. “Really? Nothing? You are missing out! You have two months to learn it and when I get back we’ll sing it in the car, okay?”

“Deal! Now open your fortune cookies, I wanna hear what they have to say.”

The shiny wrappers crinkled and fell to the floor as Torres read “There’s a big journey ahead of you-“

“I’ll say!”, Kora interrupted.

“And this one says true fortune is in the heart,” Ally continued. “Which is probably true. Unless we find a new kind of power source in the Weston Quadrant, that is. I’ll be so impatient to bring any ground samples back to the…” She noticed Kora’s face dropped considerably and decided to change the subject.

“What have you been doing today?”

“I’m here! Hey Allison,” Daisy’s flushed face appeared next to Kora’s. “Sorry, it is a madhouse today, but I’m here now.”

“Hey Daisy, I was just asking Kora what you guys have been up to today. Sounds like you had a fun time.”

With a mysterious face, Kora said “you’ll never believe what we managed…”, and revealed a pie on their cake stand. “We finally baked the cursed pie from your mother’s recipe book!”

A pang of jealousy joined the sad pit in her stomach when Torres looked at their proud faces. She had been trying to bake that pie with Kora for the past few months, messing up one or several steps at every attempt, which annoyed her to no end, exclaiming “I am a scientist! I should be able to bake this pie!” every five minutes. With a pouty face, she said “guess the pie isn’t cursed, _I am_ …”

Before the sisters could respond, a voice from behind the camera protested. “Don’t listen to them, Allison! They tried to bake it, almost burned down the house, and went out to buy a pie…”

Gleefully shocked, Daisy exclaimed “Daniel, you’re not allowed to interrupt girl talk! Ally is going to space tomorrow, she needs us.” Daisy’s husband ignored her completely and waved a cardboard box in front of their faces that had the words ‘Aunt Bessy’s Bakery’ on it.

“I can’t believe you lied to me, on my last day on earth,” Torres said, putting her hand on her chest in a dramatic gesture, but her dimples betrayed her stifled laughter.

“I’m so sorry, Ally, I wanted to surprise you and have something to come back to… I say we just buy it from now on,” Kora apologised with Daisy and Daniel chattering in the background.

“You didn’t have to bake the cursed pie for me to come back,” Torres responded with the softest smile.

“No?”

“I’m coming back home to _you_ , idiot!”

With tears in her eyes, Kora nodded and chuckled. “At least I’m _your_ idiot. Now tell me the song so I can write it down and look it up later.”

“It’s called ‘Can’t Stop Loving You’.”

“Oh god, you _are_ a sap.”

After hesitating for one moment, Torres admitted “Wanna hear something really sappy… I have been sniffing an orange every morning because I miss yours at breakfast.”

“But you don’t even like oranges…”

“I know, but I like you!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for Allison Torres to fly into space, and everything is smooth sailing!  
> That is, until an unexpected signal causes a change of plans...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Kora's girlfriend is going on her own adventure in this chapter, but there might be a glimpse of Dousy in the next one...

The next morning, Ally woke up before her alarm, and she wondered if she even slept at all. In the room next to her, she already heard Dougal shifting around and humming to himself. She looked at her watch and calculated she’d be in space in under 3 hours. Nerves swirled around inside her while she took a shower and got ready, her fingers trembling with excitement as she tied the laces of her boots. Her uniform was a cobalt blue cotton jumpsuit over a white t-shirt, combat boots and a reluctant beret that kept bouncing off her thick curly hair, so she rolled it up and stuck it in her back pocket. She braided her hair to and crossed her fingers the lack of a hat would not be a problem. The last time she went on mission, nobody even wore a uniform, so she would probably be alright, she told herself.

Dougal knocked on her door and said “Mornin’, Allison, are ye ready yet? Captain’s ‘bout to burst wi’ impatience.”

Not impressed by Masters’ sense of urgency, she checked her watch again, and responded “We’re not even expected outside for another 10 minutes!”

Calmly, she tucked the last fly aways into her braid, winked at herself in the mirror, and opened the door. “Morning, Doug.”

Dougal looked tall in his jumpsuit and beret, the latter casually moved to the side of his head. His eyes gave away his nerves, but his smile told her he was as ready as she was. She playfully punched him in the arm. “Are you ready, Abernathy?”

He chuckled, “sir, yes, sir”, and admitted “I’m glad breakfast is on board once we’re up there… I couldn’t eat a bite if I had to.”

Together, they walked down the hallway, towards the front entry of the building. Elin and Masters were already waiting outside in silence, jaws clenched in either determination or nervousness.

Torres sighed, it was going to be a long journey, and she was ready for it to finally begin.

* * *

Because The Pioneer was about a third in size and weight of Zephyr 3, flying it was a lot different, and although Torres and Elin had been on practice flights around the grounds, flying it upwards and through the atmosphere proved to be a challenging endeavour.

The plane was vibrating and the loud creaking of the walls didn’t sound promising, but all the nervous butterflies dissipated when Torres felt the pull of Earth less and less. Elin, strapped into the co-pilot chair next to Ally, stayed remarkably calm, but did all the speed and engine checks in Swedish.

“Eriksson, in English please,” Masters’s voice sounded in her earpiece, and without missing a beat, she switched over to English, announcing the increasing speed to Torres in intervals.

Torres and Elin had discussed their piloting methods beforehand, and discovered that even in the flight simulator, Elin had a tendency to accidentally switch to her native language, so Torres had simply learnt the important numbers in Swedish, but clearly the captain needed to be up to speed as well.

The faster they went, the darker it got, and the LED lights of the control panel reflected in Ally’s sparkling eyes. She loved this, this is what she had been dreaming of since she was a little girl, and it never got old.

Just when even happy-go-lucky Dougal started to doubt whether the plane was able to bear the violent crashing through the atmosphere, the noice and shaking suddenly stopped. They were now floating in outer space, firmly en route to the nearest jump point, 4 days away from here.

With a sigh of relief, Torres looked over her shoulder, and saw Earth moving further away from them. Elin smiled and nodded. “Bra gjort”, she said, and although Torres had never heard those words before, she nodded in agreement. The door of the control room opened and in walked captain Masters, looking pleased.

“Well done,” he said, unwittingly repeating Elin’s remark.

“Thank you, sir”, the women said in unison, and freed themselves from the tight seatbelts. They had decided Torres would lead the launch and Elin would take the first control room shift. Now the plane was going in the right direction, it really didn’t need much steering, but it was safest to have a pilot mapping it out, seated behind the controls at any given time.

“Can I get you something to eat or drink?”, Torres asked Elin, and squeezed her shoulder in excitement over the breathtaking view of distant planets and stars around them.

“Juice would be nice, while we still have it”, Elin replied, aware of the limitations of fresh produce on a space ship.

“Coming right up”, Torres declared cheerfully, fully in her element. She squeezed past Masters to the little hall leading up to the kitchen, but he stopped her.

“Torres,” he said.

“Yes, sir”, Torres said politely, uncomfortably close to him in the narrow hallway.

“Where is your hat?”

“I couldn’t wear it, sir, I hope that’s not a problem.”

“Could not wear it, Torres?”

Increasingly awkward, she gestured at her head. “It’s because of my hair, sir.”

Masters furrowed his ginger brows. “Your hair, Torres?”

“It’s too big, sir.”

“Too big?”

Impatient and frankly a little offended that after just having launched a plane into outer space, she now had to defend her lack of hat, she explained “the hat won’t reach round my hair, and bounces right off, sir, it’s ridiculous!”

Masters leaned over and confessed with a dimmed voice “I was worried the hats were too much, but the captain I talked to told me it’s how things are done now.”

A sigh of relief escaped Torres, and she chuckled. “Not at all, sir, I think a blue beret looks fine on anybody, and the uniforms are quite comfortable, actually. It’s just that my hair…”

He nodded in understanding, “…is too big.”

Torres nodded, suppressing the thought of how she had similar conversations with Kora’s niece, who was _three_.

Masters straightened his back and let her pass. “Torres.”

“Sir.”

While juicing some fruit and vegetables for Elin and herself, she wondered why Masters let his guard down around her, and she dreaded the idea of being his _confidant_ on the ship for the upcoming months. Hopefully Dougal or one of the tech guys could befriend the boss and she could focus on her work.

She shrugged and poured the juice.

When the orange peel hit the bottom of the compost bin, she sighed, and thought the first of many “I wish Kora was here”- thoughts.

* * *

“Allison! We’re in space!”, a grinning Dougal exclaimed when she walked into their small corner of the plane, generously dubbed ‘the lab’.

“We sure are! Have you looked out of the window yet?”

He blushed and looked down. “I made a deal with Elin, she’d call me when the Orion Nebula would be in full view, so I didn’t look outside after take off. She said the best view was from the control room.”

“And whose idea was that?”, Torres teased him with a smirk, while helping him to unpack and install their equipment. They wouldn’t need it for at least a week, but like Dougal, she liked everything to be in order.

They worked together until Elin beeped Dougal, announcing the view of the Nebula, and he rushed away, leaving Torres alone with her thoughts. She hummed to herself and screwed in the lenses of their microscope. She scribbled a quick log of their launch in the notebook and sighed. Even though Kora wasn’t here with her to gasp at every new flicker of light, she decided to go enjoy the beautiful view with the others in the control room.

* * *

Eight days had passed, and once again, Allison and the rest of the crew developed a pleasant routine of running on the treadmill, piloting the plane, preparing the meals in turns, planning their recon mission, staring at the ever changing hues of the view and discussing old movies.

In the darkness of space, all hours looked like night, merely decorated with swirls of celestial bodies, but sun-simulating lights had made it easier for everyone to adjust.

On what was a morning according to their schedule, Torres leaned back in her chair behind the controls. The jump point was exactly at the coordinates they had calculated, and zooming through it was easier than she remembered, and from there on it had been smooth sailing. She had her hair down, the curls flowing freely onto her shoulders, and she pleasantly stretched.

Sadly, the team wasn’t allowed to use their phones once they were past the jump point, in fear of sending signals through satellites they had no right to use. King Palunk of Moxan, someone they met on the previous mission, explained how the waves were a currency on several planets in and around the Weston Quadrant, which was quite the extensive section of the New Galaxy, and Masters didn’t want to risk accidentally making enemies before even landing anywhere.

Most likely, however, the first planet they’d land on would allow for use of their channels, and she could download videos from the cloud, which were uploaded by Kora or anyone else with the password, and if Torres was being honest, she looked forward to the video messages more than the actual landing on an unknown planet.

A sudden pattern of beeps sounded from the ’90s radio-radar system they installed on the control board for emergencies. Torres frowned and sat up straight. Who could be sending signals from this place on their old fashioned radar screen? It beeped again. While leaning over the screen, she clicked the button on the communicator, even though it was still really early in the morning, “Captain Masters?”

Nothing.

She repeated “Captain Masters?”

“Yes, yes, Torres, what is it?”, a hoarse Masters responded.

The signal beeped again, and Torres urged him “can you come to the control room, please, there’s something you should see.”

“On my way.”

With certain intervals, the signal got stronger, and a green blinking dot appeared on the radar. Masters walked in, the lines of a comb still apparent in his damp hair, a worried frown on his face. Before he could ask what was the matter, three short beeps sounded from their outdated screen, and he bent over in fascination. “Can we make contact?”, he asked, and Torres shook her head. “I don’t know, I was waiting for you, sir, the protocol doesn’t cover this.”

“This is Pioneer, come in, over,” Masters attempted. When nobody responded, he repeated his message.

They were met with nothing but static noise over and over again.

“This is Pioneer, is anybody out there, come in, over”, he relentlessly tried.

The signal became stronger and the dot on the screen became more clear. In the mean time, Elin had joined them and was flipping through maps and constellations on a tablet in her hand. Together, Torres and Elin calculated the coordinates and gasped simultaneously,

“It’s Wyfen’s Moon!”

Masters looked up from the radio and its crackly microphone. “Wyfen’s Moon? The deserted moon…”

“… where signals of a ship were last heard after an emergency landing,” Torres nodded, grabbing the tablet from Elin to show Masters.

“You mean the lost ship from 2017?”, he said, turning pale. The ship he was referring to, had been a recon mission gone awry, and an entire team was assumed dead when any and all contact ceased.

“My former captain was on there when it crashed… It was a tragic loss for many families,” Masters added solemnly.

“But if there is a signal…,” Elin said quietly, “… does that mean they may not be dead?”

Masters turned his back to them and leaned on the panel. He had mourned his former boss and his two friends that were on the mission. If they could still be alive, but tragically stranded on a frozen moon… It couldn’t be. He turned around.

“You’re sure it’s Wyfen’s Moon?”

The women nodded, “Yes, sir, we did the math three times. How do you want to proceed?”

“How much power and fuel do we have?”

“We have power and fuel for three landings and consequential take offs, sir,” Torres said, with her heart beating so fast, she was sure Elin could hear it thumping in her chest. Were they going on a rescue mission and bring a crew of international heroes back home? What did the crew learn from living on a cold hard rock in the middle of literally nowhere? How did they sustain themselves? For how long? Were there alien lifeforms? The questions were dizzying in their sheer amount, and she clutched the tablet while making meaningful eye contact with Elin.

“Protocol says we have to vote on a change of plan,” Masters said, wringing his hands together while staring at the fierce green dot.

“I’ll get everyone in the common room, sir!”, Elin offered and dashed off, feeling equally as fired up as Torres.

As expected, everyone voted to try and save the stranded people on Wyfen’s Moon, even if that meant giving up one landing on a potentially more interesting planet.

“I want to learn about other populations as much as I can,” Dougal said, “but they’re our people, and god knows how many of them are even alive… I say we go.”

Masters nodded and straightened his back.

“Let’s alter the course and save those men.”

* * *

Two more days of flying brought them close to the moon, and Torres sighed in awe when she saw the cold hard rock. Peaks on icy mountains glistened in the glare of far away stars, and deep dark swirls suggested what had most likely been oceans, millions of years ago. They had pinpointed where the signal came from, and would land near the crashed ship.

Torres took pictures for their log and Dougal made the required drawings. Too many times, due to faulty electricity or charged landing surfaces, teams had lost their digital footage, so one team member always had to take analog photographs and make illustrations of the views and surroundings, just to make sure valuable information wouldn’t get lost.

One of the mechanics, Yang, peered over Dougal’s shoulder and admired his handiwork.

“You have a real knack for those, huh? I wonder if I can cop one for my kid’s nursery?”, he was bold enough to ask.

“Thenk ye! I don’t think that’s allowed, though”, Dougal replied while opening the tin with the inks and watercolours. “But I’ll make you a deal… if you fill this up with water for me now,” and he handed a small paint stained plastic cup to the mechanic, “I’ll paint anything you like when we fly back home.”

Yang smiled and nodded, “Thanks, man!”, and a little shy, he added “she loves horses,” before leaving to fill the cup.

“Hey Caravaggio,” Torres interrupted a peaceful hour of writing down statistics and calculations with only the rustling of pages from Dougal’s drawing pad. “Land down in 10 minutes, you might wanna pack up your paints.”

“Aye, shall I go get the ginger?”, he cheerfully responded while laying the paintings in their designated drawer to dry.

“No need, I am here, Abernathy,” Masters replied from the doorway.

“I’ll go and get out of your way then,” Dougal said, mouthing “yikes!” at Torres, who hid her chuckle behind her hand. After taking the elastic from her wrist, she quickly put her hair in a ponytail, unsuccessfully trying to brush some loose strands behind her ears. Masters leaned over her chair to take in more of the view.

“Sir? Have you called Elin in as well?”, Torres wondered, surprised the Swede had not made an excited entrance yet.

“Eriksson is not available, so I’ll join you on the landing,” he replied, sitting down in Elin’s chair, which was positioned way too high for his long legs to properly sit.

Torres frowned, they didn’t practice flying or landing together, let alone landing on an unknown and likely slippery surface, which was tricky enough by itself.

Masters, fumbling with the levers to lower the chair, felt her apprehensive silence, and looked up.

“I’m colourblind, Torres.”

“Sir?”

“The only reason I am not a pilot now. I went through the training, we will do fine together.”

Torres sighed, only mildly relieved. “I hope Eriksson is okay?”, she inquired, while kneeling down and fixing the seat’s height for him, after he instructed everyone over the plane’s speaker system to get seated and strapped in for landing.

“Let’s focus on arriving safely, Torres”, he insisted, and buckled himself in. “Eriksson will be fine.”

Ally did the same, feeling her nerves calm as she flipped switches on the control panel and turned off the light.

With intervals of 20 miles per hour, Masters announced the decreasing speed and remarked on the complete lack of atmosphere, making entry much easier than expected. Sweat droplets appeared on Torres’ forehead when she forcefully guided the plane nearer to the moon, which looked to be as hard as a rock, and very unforgiving to any mistakes.

“Hold on, sir!”, she warned him, and pulled up the plane’s nose with all her might. With a loud screech, the landing gear made contact with the icy surface of Wyfen’s Moon, and they slid down a mostly flat trail while Torres carefully hit the brakes with little pumps, fighting with the steering bars to keep the plane from spinning out of control.

Finally, the air craft stood still, and Torres panted while smiling at Masters. “We did it, sir!”, she exclaimed proudly.

“ _You_ did it, Torres”, he said sternly, and got up.

“Suit up, let’s not make the survivors wait much longer than they have to,” he ordered the team, his voice carrying through the ship over the speakers.

“Yes, sir,” Torres replied, still out of breath. She made her way down the narrow hall way, and rushed to her bunk, where earlier today, she already spread out her suit and oxygen tank on the bed.

She breathed hot air on her helmet’s visor and polished it with her sleeve, making squeaky noises while doing so, hearing several people doing the same thing.

All suited up in the thermal undergarments, moon suit, weighed down boots, stretchy fleece cap and connected oxygen, she walked heavy steps to the exit with the shiny space helmet under her arm. She had been on two extraterrestrial planets before, but both had breathable air, so getting to wear the proper astronaut suit made her feel tingly from her head down to her toes.

Elin’s face peeked around the corner with a big bandaid on her forehead.

“Oh no, what happened?,” Torres gasped upon seeing her friend stepping closer, revealing her arm in a sling as well.

Embarrassed, Elin smiled a bit and looked down at her feet. “I fell”, she admitted.

“You fell?”

“I was tired and closed my eyes for a moment… while I was on the treadmill.”

Torres couldn’t help but chuckle, and put her heavy moonsuit clad arm around Elin’s shoulder. “I missed you with the landing”, she said, jokingly shaking her a bit.

“I know, I’m sorry, I was passed out when Masters found me, and he insisted I couldn’t.”

“Well no, of course! You need to rest, what if you have a concussion?”

Elin nodded, looking a bit guilty. “But you pulled it off splendidly, Ally, we landed safely, right?”

Torres nodded and changed the subject.

“So Masters found you, huh?”, she said with a cheeky smile.

Elin blushed, and laughed despite her own embarrassment, “I was in my underwear…”

“Oh, even better!”

Dougal walked in to find them giggling and joined nervously, checking his oxygen tubes for the twentieth time.

Masters and Yang joined them. Yang, only responsible for the state of the plane and landing gear, seemed the least nervous of them all, and calmly put on the helmet and clicked it into place on the suit’s hard rim. Not having to worry about missions or routes like the others made him very relaxed, and he gladly helped the trembling team members to get their helmets on right.Elin snapped a few quick pictures of the crew all suited up, and shut the air lock behind her.

Masters, looking impossibly broad and tall in his moonsuit and helmet, did a check up to see if everyone was ready, and then gestured Yang to open the door.

A loud hissing and croaking accompanied the slow rising of the door panels, opening the way to the moon’s solid frozen ground. Yang immediately walked to the plane’s landing gear and checked the overall damage on the outsides.

Careful not to slip, Masters, Torres and Abernathy made their way to the left, where behind a ridge, they knew the ruins of the space craft to be. The cold air formed crystals on their glass visors, and Torres put down the internal heating of her suit to prevent further condensation on the inside of her helmet.

“Successful landing on Wyfen’s Moon, minus 45 degrees Celsius”, she spoke, recording her voice on the devise in her suit. “No life forms at all to be seen so far, sparkling icicles on the rocks fairly breathtaking.”

The moon was truly beautiful in its forlorn rawness and shades of sparkling blue and white Torres had never seen before. Walking was hard with their weighed down boots, but with such little gravity, they would have floated away into the big nothing if they so much as skipped.

Dougal tried to sketch a few lines, but his gloves were too big and cumbersome to hold a pencil, so he tucked it away. He grinned at Torres, and quickly stuck out his hands when she slipped and nearly fell.

“Thank you”, her metallic sounding voice resonated in his helmet.

“Ye’re welcome”.

Slowly, they climbed the steep mountain ridge. It wasn’t very high, but the edges were very sharp, and their voluminous suits were quite unwieldy when trying to boulder up a slippery rock, especially with the low sense of gravity making them feel like balloons, trying to float away.

“There it is”, Masters said, breathing heavily. Whether it was the climb or the emotion of seeing the crashed plane, Torres didn’t know, but she felt for him. She had been reading up on the accident prior to arrival, and knew three people Masters had worked with, had probably passed away right here.

Without uttering a word, Masters increased his step until he was almost jogging, anxious to reach the ship. His feet barely touched the ground for most of it, making it a frustrating effort.

Torres was right behind him, grateful for the running and weight training she had been doing, making this exercise a lot easier than expected.

Up close, the ship looked like a sad crumpled old car in a junk card, with scratches all over the sides and no landing gear to be seen. Looking up, Torres could see the starry sky through gaps in the torn carriage work.

“Hello?”, she called out, severely doubting whether anybody would be here. Nobody could survive a crash like this, the oxygen had to have run out ages ago, with the space craft in shambles like this.

“Hello? Is anybody out here?”, she tried again, more so for Masters’ benefit than her own. Her big green eyes filled up with tears at the thought of the team that ended up here, trying to contact anybody for help, and knowing they would eventually suffocate. “Hello?? Anybody?”, she asked more urgently, blinking away the tears.

“Anybody at all?”, Dougal joined her, setting foot in the dark plane, crouching down to pass a dented panel that was dangling by an electric wire.

“We are with S.H.I.E.L.D. and we mean to be of help,” Masters managed to call out, dragging his feet on the last few inches, not wanting to face it yet.

Suddenly, a loud clanging came from within the broken down ship.

“Hello? Is there someone there?”, Torres shouted, diving into the ship without giving another thought to its perhaps perilous condition.

More clanging echoed in the darkness.

“Over here!”, Dougal called out, and shone his flashlight on a metal pipe.

Masters rushed inside and together, they started pulling away rubble, fallen shelves and broken floor boards, until they revealed the pipe to be the banister of a small staircase.

“Good lord, I knew I was going mad when I heard voices, but now I’m actually seeing faces?”, a voice expressed concern from the bottom of the stairs, when they leaned over to look down.

Masters nearly fell down the staircase in shock. “General Hayden?!”, he said, and climbed down the steps to a small caved in room, where his former captain was sat by an ancient looking control panel in a discoloured thermal shirt and torn combat pants.

Torres followed and stared in complete shock. “How are you alive?”, she asked, gesturing at his general lack of moonsuit.

“And how do you look so good?”, Dougal wondered.

“Okay, now I know for sure I’m hallucinating,” General Hayden chuckled.

“He has to be inhuman,” Torres said, “or an alien?”

Masters brusquely turned to her, his helmet nearly knocking hers, “General Hayden is not an alien! He is a human man who…”, and his voice trailed off while he turned back to the man in front of them, whose hair looked perfectly maintained and whose face showed no signs of losing weight, after having lived with no oxygen or food for quite a few years.

“… he does look remarkably well, doesn’t he?”, he muttered, eyeing the general’s strong looking physique. 

“Oh stop it, Rodney, you’re making me vain!”, Hayden laughed and waved off their remarks.

Masters gasped, fogging up his helmet for a second. “So you do remember me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was chapter 2! Hope you enjoyed it, I'm having a lot of fun writing a space mission (even though I know everybody just wants pregnancy pics with the Sousa fam, lol <3), and I'll post chapter 3 next week!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team take the surviving general with them to their ship, and Torres watches a video message from Kora and the Sousa family.

Hayden’s face dropped. Slowly, he reached out his hand, and felt the tough fabric of Masters’ sleeve. His eyes widened and glossed over.

“I’m not hallucinating, am I?”

Masters shook his head inside his helmet. “No, sir, we responded to your signal. You appeared on our radar, and we knew we had to come save you all…”, realising as he looked around them, there was no “ _all_ ”. There was just General Hayden, who inexplicably was alive and well amidst a broken down space ship on a frozen moon.

Impatiently, Torres stepped closer. “Okay, but how are you alive? Please tell us, we’re scientists and don’t really believe in miracles,” and with a quick glance at Dougal, “…at least I don’t.”

Hayden lifted a plastic curtain, showing them a small improvised green house with a few plants. “I lived on this, and powered the lights with that,” he told her, and pointed at a makeshift generator made from an exercise bike.

“Incredible…”, Torres sighed, trying not to think of how lonely and maddening it had to be to fertilise and harvest the limp tomato shrub on his own.

“And the fact that you’re breathing despite the lack of oxygen… You have to be inhuman. Or did something else happen to you, like when someone becomes a superhero?”

Hayden shook his head. “I am no superhero,” he sighed and then turned to Masters.

“So you came for me? Do you have a ship? Is it… in one piece?”, he inquired, seemingly afraid of what the answer would be.

“Yes, sir, we came to get you. Our ship is well, I believe, our mechanic is doing a check up as we speak,” Masters replied with a hint of pride. Then, he dared to ask the question that had been burning in his mind the entire time. “Is there anyone else alive here?”

It hurt Hayden to look into Master’s hopeful eyes, when he answered.

“Sorry, Rod, it’s just me, I’m afraid. One by one, I had to carry them all to a cave not far from here…” He sat down, his body suddenly heavy, and rested his head in his hands. “The ground is rock solid here, I couldn’t bury them! I tried!”

The crew looked at each other while the general quietly sobbed. “What do we do now?”, Dougal mouthed and Masters remained still like a statue, not having the words to response to the sense of loss the general had to endure.

Torres kneeled down as well as her suit allowed, and made eye contact with the man. “I am so incredibly sorry for what you had to go through. Would you be okay with coming to our plane? We can bring you back home with us.”

Hayden whispered “ _home_?”

Torres smiled at him encouragingly, and put her rigid gloved hand on his knee. “Earth. Where people have been hoping for a miracle for a long time.”

Hayden exhaled and looked over his shoulder at the control panel he’d spent god knows how many days behind. Leaving it and his crew behind would be harder than the thought. He looked back at Torres, crouched down by his feet, and saw his own reflection in her glass visor blending with her genuine eyes behind it.

Abruptly, he stood up and turned his back to them. “You’re all much too kind. I don’t know if I deserve to come with you. Perhaps my place is here,” he said, running his hand restlessly through his blonde hair.

Torres, who had fallen over from the sudden movement of the general, crawled back up and suggested “Okay, how about you join us now for a meal, a shower or a bed, and decide whether you want to stay here or come with us?”

With a slow and pensive nod, Hayden agreed, and put the blanket Dougal brought around his shoulders. He climbed up the stairs with the three Astro Ambassadors right behind him, and took in the view from the torn up entry way with a sigh, before taking a step in his worn out moon boots.

Outside of the broken down aircraft, Masters turned off his external microphone and pressed the communicator.

“Torres, have you lost your mind?”, his angry voice resounded in her helmet. “Whether he wants to _stay_? He is coming home with us!”

Torres turned down the volume of the speaker in her suit, and replied firmly “He clearly went through a lot, and is traumatised. I am not forcing some poor lonely man to leave behind the only home he’s had for the past few years!”

“Any following decisions regarding the general will be discussed with me first, Torres, that is an order.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Torres replied, moving closer to Dougal, who was helping a shivering Hayden down the hill, “I think any decisions are up to the general.”

Masters turned off his mike and visibly cursed to himself, but no one could or cared to hear him. He knew she was right, but the idea of his former captain having to live in this hell hole for one more day, was unbearable.

* * *

All pink and rosy from a hot shower, Hayden sat at the kitchen table, wearing Dougal’s bright red sweater and his hands clutching a mug of freshly made coffee. Elin, careful to not bump her sling against the table, had sat down next to him, and they had a conversation in her native language. With a curious expression on his face, he pointed at her sling, and Elin explained while giggling at her own expense.

With his arms crossed, Masters was leaning against the counter when Ally walked into the kitchen. She noticed they were speaking Swedish and raised her eyebrows at their captain.

“He was stationed in Stockholm for a long time, I believe he worked with Eriksson’s father at one point,” he clarified in a low voice.

They observed the pair for a few minutes while drinking their own coffee, when Masters suddenly found the courage to say “I need to speak with you.”

Torres, deep in thought, trying to remember all the details to tell Kora later, jumped a little. “Yes, sir.”

Together, they went into the hallway. Torres braced herself for his discipline, fearing she was out of bounds earlier, even though she stood by what she said.

Looking pastier than usual, making his freckles and pale blue eyes stand out harshly, Masters looked younger and more vulnerable. “I have to apologise”, he said.

“Sir?”

“Out of all of us, it should have been me to show the man compassion. But you did. You stepped up. I am sorry for taking my frustrations out on you. It was unprofessional, and it won’t happen again.”

Torres tilted her head and looked up at her boss. Part of his tough exterior was an act, and part was likely his upbringing, but she could never quite pin him down.

“I accept your apologies, sir, and was wondering if I could speak freely?”

Dougal passed them in the hall way, his black kinky hair still wet from the shower he took when Hayden was finally done washing off years of dirt. “Oof, the cold out here is - ”, he remarked, but chuckled awkwardly when he noticed he had interrupted them.

Masters nodded with his head to the door closest to them. “Let’s go talk in here”, he suggested, and left Dougal behind with a “well done out there, Abernathy.”

“Oh, thenk ye, sir,” he replied cheerfully, curious as to what was going on. “I’ll tell you later,” Torres whispered, and followed Masters into the room, which turned out to be his bunk.

The bed was made so neatly, it looked like no one had ever slept in it, and his polished boots stood side by side in front of the little window. “You have a window in your bunk, sir?”, Torres blurted out, and looked out to the deserted icy landscape.

“You wanted to speak to me?”, he reminded her, feeling self-conscious about the fact they were standing in his private room.

“Yes. I hope this isn’t insulting or weird…”

“Okay…”, he urged her, curious and a bit worried.

“You seem to talk differently to me than how you communicate with the others, and I wonder why that is. Did I do something? Or am I being paranoid right now?”, she asked, her knees trembling slightly. Speaking her mind was usually not something she struggled with, but she felt unsure. What if it was all in her head?

But Masters nodded, and put his hands in his pockets. Slightly flushed, he looked down and said “You are not paranoid.”

“Then what is it, sir? I don’t want the others on the team think you’re playing favourites or something.”

“You remind me so much of her, it’s almost spooky”, he said with an embarrassed expression on his face, and gestured at a framed picture he had secured to the wall. It was a photograph of his daughter Molly, her red hair in two braids, her face covered in even more freckles than her dad’s, wearing a t-shirt with little flowers on it.

“The way you talk, the way you make friends with everyone around you, the way you’re stubborn… I am reminded of her, every day, all day long. And frankly…”

Torres blinked, she had not heard him speak this much outside of debriefings, ever.

“…it scares me. When we unexpectedly had to remain on mission much longer, three years ago, it hurt me to be apart from her, and it put me off the job all together for quite a while.”

Ally nodded, she understood. She remembered hearing him cursing through the walls of their bunks on Z-3, his pacing in the middle of the night, and even though they were barely in contact back then, she knew he had suffered.

“Are you alright?”, she asked, her kind gaze almost forcing him to look at her.

He nodded. “I am now, but it took me some help and some time to get there. And besides…” His eyes wandered to the unforgiving landscape outside, “… our previous mission could have ended up much worse.”

Torres nodded solemnly, shivering at the thought of suffocating on a lonely sub-zero moon.

“I do appreciate you speaking your mind, Torres. Even if I have a poor way of showing it,” Masters remarked, and Torres appreciated his unexpected self-awareness.

She turned her attention back to the photograph of his daughter. “I can imagine the constant reminder of her can make it tricky to stay calm and focused on the mission”, she said with a sympathetic smile, internally relieved that the boss didn’t harbour a secret crush on her.

He nodded, and replied “Well yes, definitely. But I also miss her and enjoy how tenacious you both can be. So I apologise if I come on too strongly at moments, or treat you unfairly. I guess I am more of a dad than a captain after all.”

“Are you smiling, sir? Is that what that is?”, Torres teased him and pointed at his smirk.

He did indeed smile faintly for a moment and shrugged. “Will that be all, Torres?”

“One more thing, sir,” Torres said with a cheeky grin.

“Yes, Torres?”

“Your name is Rodney?!”

“That will be all, Torres, I believe it’ll be time for dinner soon.”

* * *

“Guess what?”, Elin said with an eager smile. Ally, having just taken a bite, chewed, and wondered with her hand in front of her mouth, “What?”

They were all cramped at the sizeable kitchen table, dining on what only could be described as a ‘stew-like’ meal, according to Dougal. Masters usually had dinner by himself after he went through the daily reports written by the team; the two mechanics and medic lived on a whole other timezone to make sure the crew members did overlap, but didn’t crowd each other. With another human on board, however, everyone wanted to join the meal to see what the presumed dead general was like up close, so they spread out today’s ration and were sat knee to knee around the table, the ceiling light casting lively shadows on the oak surface.

“I am so bad at guessing,” Torres defended herself, when Elin chirped “Wrong! Guess again,” for the third time. The bearded mechanic seated next to Dougal sighed and demanded “for god’s sake, Eriksson, just tell her!” and Masters nodded in agreement with the sentiment.

“Okay, well, general Hayden and I managed to find a work around, and the video messages sent to us from earth are downloading as we speak! We hope to keep it open for long enough to send some messages back as well,” Elin said, and squeezed her eyes shut in glee when they all tumbled over each other to praise her efforts.

It had been a tough pill to swallow when they found out the rescue side-mission to Wyfen’s Moon would mean they wouldn’t get to see their friends’ and family’s videos for at least another two weeks, so this news could not have been more well received.

Yang slapped the general jovially on the shoulder, causing him to drop his fork and grab his arm in pain.

“Oh man, I’m so sorry, general, sir”, Yang stuttered, but Hayden waved it off.

“Just not used to human contact anymore, no worries, love” he said with a grimace.

Yang didn’t think much of it and continued eating, but Torres noticed the interaction, and squinted at the general. He picked up the fork with his other hand and clumsily moved his dinner around on the plate while sparing his obviously painful shoulder.

Hayden looked so strong and healthy, his skin was practically glowing, and his thick blonde hair fell in a bouncy lock on his high forehead. A few tomato shrubs and what looked like spinach could not sustain a man this large for so long without causing him at least to look a tad emaciated, she pondered. He had to be inhuman, she figured, and she looked at the medic, who had been silent the entire time.

What came out of the medical check up? Did it explain why a man living on leafs and presumably melted icicles filled out a sweater with such thick arms? She decided she’d get to the bottom of it - after watching Kora’s video of course!

* * *

“Hey babe! It’s a little weird to talk to you when you might see this weeks from now… But you just left, and the house is so quiet. I am so proud of you, we all are…” Kora’s voice trailed off as emotions took over.

“Aw, Kora… don’t cry,” Ally pleaded at the tablet, and gently caressed the image of her girlfriend.

“This is going well,” Kora continued with a watery chuckle. “I guess it’s stupid to record a video two seconds after you left, nothing worth mentioning has happened yet!”

Torres smiled and held the tablet against her chest, feeling such a need to fold her arms around the woman she loved more than anything. She let go and pressed play to watch the rest of the video, drinking in every detail. It showed Kora later that day and again later that week, playing with her sister Daisy’s children.

“I made you a drawing, auntie Allison!”, the eldest exclaimed, proudly showing a scribble of what could depict Torres or perhaps a monkey and a rocket, (who’s to say?) and Torres wiped away a tear. Having a real family was still so new to her, and it almost hurt her heart when she visualised the distance between them right now.

“You’re up in space now, and I’m staying with the Sousas! Ground base said the take off went splendidly, which surprised me because you don’t have me as a co-pilot this time, but I am glad you are safe”, Kora joked, her eyes glistening.

The shaky camera footage indicated Kora was now walking through the house she was staying at, and when she stood still, the screen showed Daniel Sousa stretched out on the couch. “We miss you, Allison, be safe,” he said with a smile after stifling a yawn.

The camera then zoomed to Daisy, who sat at the table, looking quite sleepy herself. “Hey Torres, we hope to see you soon! With Masters as your captain, I’m sure you’ll be on a tight schedule, so we won’t keep you long. We -“

Daisy got interrupted by a crying baby.

Sousa, in the background, hauled himself off the couch to go comfort their daughter. “My turn”, he said, and walked out of frame while Daisy gratefully yawned and nodded.

“She’s teething and has been waking up at all hours,” she explained, and mindlessly started to fold tiny laundry, seemingly forgetting she was recording a message for a traveling Torres. “Bye, auntie Allison”, Charlie exclaimed from out of frame and her little footsteps trailed off as she left the room as well.

Impatient but amused, Kora appeared on screen again. “Well, this concludes your beacon of light in the far distance of outer space, I guess” she joked, turning away from the absentminded agent in the background.

“I love you, Ally, and I’m looking forward to my message from you. We’re all doing really well, so no need to worry about us, okay?”

Torres’s chin trembled at the up close sight of Kora’s face and big brown eyes. “I miss you”, she whispered, as Kora said goodbye and blew a kiss at the camera.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mysterious general Hayden stayed on the ship with for a few days, when Torres finally dares to ask him her burning question.

A quick knock on the door with “E. Eriksson” written on the sign announced Torres’ presence, and it flew open as if E. Eriksson had been standing right behind it.

Elin’s smile dropped when she saw the tears in Ally’s eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Torres nodded and smirked. “I just wish my family was here, you know, instead of planets away…”

The co-pilot wrapped her free arm around Allison in silent agreement.

“Thank you”, Torres mumbled.

She then blinked away the tears and handed over the tablet. “Your turn!”

Eagerly, Elin took the tablet from her and tapped on the screen to press play.

“Vi saknar dig!!”, several people singsonged at the same time, cueing tears now to run down Elin’s face.

“It means they miss me,” she translated with a watery grin.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Torres’s remark fell to to deaf ears, as Elin was now fully absorbed by the fast speaking family members on the screen.

With a chuckle, Torres shut the door behind her and headed for the control room. A peek at her watch told her it was almost time for her shift. Even though they were grounded on Wyfen’s Moon, check-ups had to be done and travel plans had to remain up to date, and if she hurried, she could see the teal and peachy streaks across the sky from the weekly sunrise general Hayden told her about at dinner.

* * *

Masters nodded when she entered. “Torres.”

She gestured at the tablet resting on his leg as she sat down. “All is well back home?”

A slight smile pulled on the corners of his mouth. “Very well,” he replied, and not being able to leave it at that, he added proudly “Molly has started guitar lessons and she played for me.”

“Aw, that sounds wonderful, sir.”

“It was. Yours?”

“Both agents Johnson and of course agent Sousa wished us well, and my cousin drew me a picture.”

“A picture of what?”

“I can’t say for sure, sir,” Torres chuckled, “but I loved it nonetheless.”

Soft light appeared on the horizon, and Masters leaned forward on the panel, still dreaming about his daughter and her frown of concentration while she played the guitar off key.

The sun never fully shone on this side of Wyfen’s Moon, but some beams reached over the surface and set the frozen hills alight with dazzling sparkles. The distant stars faded behind the gentle sunrise and Torres rummaged through the drawer underneath the control panel without taking her eyes off the sight.

More and more, the sky colored a sorbet pink, and what seemed deserted and grey at first, now looked warm and promising.

Finally, Torres found both the analog and digital camera and snapped a few pictures with each, while Masters instructed Dougal to get to the control room right this instant.

Dougal came rushing in to paint as if his life depended on it, knowing full well the turning of the moon would mean it’d be dark again in an hour or less. His speed halted when he saw the cockpit filled with the softest pink twilight.

“No time for gasping, Abernathy”, Masters reminded him sternly, his red hair glowing in the light.

“I’ll go get Hayden, god knows how long he sat downstairs in the ruins, alone and in the dark”, Torres offered, but there was no need. The general’s tall stature darkened the doorway and he smiled at her.

“I appreciate you thinking of me, love,” Hayden said with a nod, standing back to not be in Dougal’s way.

“It doesn’t look so lonely now, does it?”, he mused, allowing his eyes to trail over the glittery ridges of the rocky landscape, while leaning his muscular shoulder against the door frame.

Torres squinted at the general for a moment. Something was off, she could feel it, and she felt her curiosity burn. Wanting to know everything, but also respecting the unknown traumas the general went through caused her to keep her queries to herself.

“Oh my god!”, Dougal suddenly exclaimed, clutching his drawing pad against his chest.

“Someone else is out here?!”

He pointed at two figures in moon suits slowly walking towards their plane.

“Will you calm down, Abernathy,” Masters replied, “I sent Eriksson out to capture the sunrise on video.”

The figure besides Elin threw a stiff peace sign with his gloved arm, and Dougal sighed, “And that’s Yang.”

Masters nodded. “Eriksson couldn’t carry the equipment with her shoulder having been dislocated, so I sent Yang along with her. Any one else have any questions?”

“No sir,” Ally and Dougal said in unison and returned their focus to their work.

Hayden stifled a chuckle and shook his head. “It’s time for me to get some rest, it has been the longest day. You seem to have it all perfectly under control, Rodney.”

“Yes sir, sleep well, sir” Masters responded, ignoring the snickering from his crew members.

* * *

A few days later, calculations of the moon’s orbit showed it was time to prepare for take off.

“And you’re sure it has to be today?”, Hayden asked, nervously pacing the kitchen.

Elin spread out the papers on the table and showed him.

“It’ll have to be in 7 hours or we have to wait a whole month, sir, and our rations will be very thin by then, considering we still have to recon two more planets and journey back home.”

“Home…”, the general whispered to himself as he sat down on a chair.

* * *

“Ally, I need your help.”

Torres looked up from the microscope, its ring shape still indented around her eye from looking at soil samples for the last hour.

Elin pulled an apple and a knife from her sling. “Want to share?”

“Oh, you sneaky genius, I thought we ran out of apples?”, Torres gasped, “what else are you hiding in that thing?”, and she peeked into the sling. Elin giggled and sat down by the narrow desk.

“Okay, so what can I help you with?”, Torres asked while carefully cutting the apple into slices.

“It’s Hayden.”

“What about him?”

“Take off is in about 6 hours, as you know, and he still doesn’t know if he wants to stay here or come with us, and I thought he might listen to you…”

Torres handed Elin an apple slice and frowned. “Why would he listen to _me_?”

“Well, Masters listens to you.”

“He does?”

“Yes, Ally, you can be very persuasive!”

“You mean bossy?”

Elin blushed and looked away. “I don’t know, English is not my first language”, she said with a cheeky smile.

Allison laughed and enjoyed the crisp sweetness of the apple.

After a minute of thinking, she stood up. “Fine, I’ll give it a go. But these -“ and she gathered two more apple slices, “are mine.”

Elin chuckled. “Yes, boss.”

* * *

Clad in her white moonsuit, and the helmet under her arm, Torres entered the kitchen.

Hayden turned around.

“Where are you going?”, he wondered, gesturing at her gear.

“I’ve come to walk you back home”, she nodded in the general direction of the ruins of his ship.

“Take off is in 6 hours and we need to rest and prep, so I thought it might be best to walk you back now, seeing as you aren’t coming with us.”

Hayden blinked and slowly got to his feet. “I’m not coming?”

Torres buckled down and lied “I talked to captain Masters and he agrees we’d respect your wishes.”

“My wishes?”

“Sir, if you wanted to join us, you would have said so by now. This has been your home for years… who are we to take you away from it?”

Hayden leaned over and put his handsome face near Ally, whose face looked very young and round, sticking out of the wide opening of the suit’s rim, with all of her curls neatly tucked under the fleece hood of her thermal undergarments.

“The downside of big eyes like yours…” he said with a smirk, “… I can tell when you’re bluffing.”

Torres sighed and put the heavy helmet on the table.

“Okay, fine, reversed psychology is not my strong suit. But sir, you _have_ to come with us. There is nothing here… So let me at least come with you to gather your things and maybe… pay our last respects to your crew.”

Tears welled up in the general’s eyes. He looked so absolutely forlorn, that in a reflex, Torres went in for a hug, only to be restrained by the stiff astronaut suit.

“Aw, love, you really are a kind girl”, Hayden said with a watery chuckle, and wrapped his long arms around Torres, as well as her suit allowed. She wondered to herself how long it had been since the general last had a hug, and she patted his back with her chunky gloved hands.

“Alright, let’s go,” he said, and released her. “I’ll ask Masters for a coat, it’s cold as the Dickens out there!”

As if on cue, Dougal walked in with his long winter coat over his arm.

“Elin told me you might head outside, and I thought ye might be cold.”

“Aren’t you two just darlings?” Hayden chuckled, and gratefully put on the coat, accidentally dropping the scarf that was put into the sleeve.

He bent over to pick it up, and the movement caused a necklace to slip out from underneath his t-shirt’s collar and dangled on his chest. Inconspicuously, he tucked it back in his shirt, but Torres had noticed. She chose not to say anything, and asked Dougal to help her with screwing on the helmet and connecting the oxygen. Playfully, he tapped the top of the helmet like it was the roof of a cab. “Aye lass, ye’re good to go!”

Silently, Torres and Hayden wrote the time and reason for their departure in the log, and with the airlocks hissing behind them, they walked out of the ship.

“Strange how it can be so dark, but I can see so well out here?”, Torres remarked through the speaker on the front of her suit.

“No light pollution,” Hayden mused, “and just look at the stars, they shine so bright right now… like I’m sure they always do… Guess I have not taken the time to look up in quite a while.”

For a moment, Ally allowed her mind to wander, and she imagined Kora’s head resting on her shoulder. Nobody loved to stargaze and make up asinine origin stories of the constellations like her girlfriend, and she would have a field day with these new and unknown stars. She sighed, forgetting her mic was still on.

“What is it?”, Hayden wanted to know.

“I wish my girlfriend was here with me. She is an Astro Ambassador as well, and we met on a mission. She would love this starry sky.”

The general put up the collar of the coat and shivered. “Girlfriend, huh? Met on mission? I’m sure that’s quite a story.”

Torres took a careful step around a sunken spot and shook off the urge to talk about Kora.

“Enough about me, what about you, sir?”

“What about me?”

“Well for one, you’re not wearing an oxygen pack or a suit at all. And two, how come I can hear you through the helmet without a communicator? Are you telepathic, sir? And how come you look like Captain America without access to a gym or proper food? Oh and what about your mysterious necklace?”, Torres ranted, nearly out of breath. “You may have fooled Masters, but I know something is up, and the curiosity has been killing me for a week now!”

Hayden chuckled. “I am impressed you held all this in for so long, I for sure thought you were gonna bombard me much sooner.”

“Please sir, tell me. Anything! If you want, it can be between us and no one needs to know.”

“Alright. Well, I am not Inhuman.”

Shocked, Ally looked over her shoulder. “And not a super hero either, right? So maybe an alien? Or…”, she frantically searched for other options. “Are you maybe… enhanced? Oh, or a mutant?”

Hayden smiled secretively and said “I am one of those.”

In the mean time, they were climbing the ridge in front of the crashed air craft, a view which moved Torres all over again. The thought of a crew suffocating there made her shudder. She blinked away persistent tears and muttered “okay, that tells me nothing!”

They helped each other over the last hurdles and shuffled on the icy ground to the ruins. Hayden was clearly in no mood to talk, and Torres didn’t push.

Quietly, they entered the ship and climbed down the stairs. The generator had run out of energy, now that the general wasn’t there to power it with the bicycle, so they switched on their flashlights. The harsh cold light beams made the place look even more deserted and broken down, and Torres felt her tears leave crunchy frozen trails on her cheeks.

She opened up the empty duffle bag they brought, and gently started to put pieces of equipment in it.

“No… leave those. All I need are these…”, Hayden said, holding a few picture frames, a thick folder of paperwork and a what looked like a dying plant.

“Can I…” Torres asked, and Hayden showed her the pictures. One showed the crew members in their uniform, proudly posing at the same home-base she was quarantined in a few weeks ago. The other photograph was a portrait of general Hayden himself.

“Why did you have a picture of yourself on board?”, Torres wondered, but her voice faded when she saw the broken expression on the general’s face. He covered his mouth and a sob escaped him.

“I’m so sorry, it must be impossible to leave your crew behind,” Torres apologized, feeling guilty for asking unimportant questions at a time like this.

Hayden waved away her apologies. He opened his mouth to speak, when suddenly, the creaky floor gave way and Torres fell through it.

She yelped and protected the glass visor with her arms, not being able to break her fall. Her head got thrown back and forth again inside the helmet like a bobble head ornament in the back of a car.

“Torres!”, Hayden called out, and fell to his hands and knees by the hole in the floor. “Are you okay? Don’t move, I am coming to help you!” With a quiet jingle, something sparkly fell down and ended up swinging from the splintered wood right above Torres.

She groaned and felt something warm dripping down her face. Blood? Tears? There was no way for her to tell. She had dropped her flashlight on the floor (technically now the ceiling) when she fell, and it shone from the hole above her, outlining the broken floorboards.

Dizzily, Torres raised her hand and took the shiny object from the sharp wooden point, as she heard the general climb down the steps to the left. “Oh hey, I think I got your necklace”, she slurred with a sheepish smile.

“Don’t worry about that, just give me it”, Hayden’s voice came from near her.

“Here it is”, she muttered and promptly dropped it when she tried to hand it over. She heard Hayden’s hands hastily move across the floor, looking for the piece of jewelry.

“Oh, I’m fine, by the way”, she giggled faintly, noticing the spots she was seeing were not in the room.

“Of course, forgive me, Allison, let me look at you”.

In the darkness of the room, the general bent over Torres, to see if she was alright.

Ally squinted at his blurry silhouette while trying to stay awake.

“What are you…” she tried to say, but she drifted into unconsciousness.

Lit by flashlight above them, the last thing she saw were two green pointy ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, I know it's only a few of you but I appreciate it so much! I really love writing this story, There'll be a few more chapters before Torres and Kora are reunited, but they definitely will have their fluffy moment <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a sudden crash through the wooden floor of the general's space ship, Torres recovers and tries to remember what she saw before she passed out.

  
Voices echoed from far away.

“She’s down there!”

“Torres? Torres? Try to stay awake…”

“It’s gonna be alright, we got ye…”

“… Time to wake up, Ally…”

“… and it was scary but we managed it. I didn’t know Masters could pilot…”

* * *

The constant whirring of the fluorescent light was what pulled Ally back from her hazy dreams, and slowly, she opened her eyes. She wanted to speak, but her mouth was too dry.

With a hushing gesture, the medic, who appeared as if from nowhere, laid a hand on her shoulder. “Have a sip of water first,” she said, relieved her patient had woken up so soon.

Torres took a sip through the straw doctor Sanders offered, and realized she must have been out for quite a while, going by how thirsty she was. 

“What time is it?”, she wondered hoarsely.

Sanders looked at her watch. “8 PM. How are you feeling?”

Shocked by the reply, Torres shot up in bed, but fell back down when she got surprised by a throbbing pain in her head.

“Calm down, you had quite the fall. Do you remember how you got here?”

Torres frowned while feeling her face with unsure fingers. She vaguely recalled the creaking of the floor, but got distracted when she felt the hard brace on her face. “Did I break my nose?”

Sanders nodded. “You must have hit the inside of your helmet when you fell. Your neck is fine, luckily.”

She shone a light in Ally’s eyes and raised her finger. “Follow my finger with your eyes, please?”

A sense of panic rushed over Ally when she realized she was wearing her pajamas. “My suit? Where is my helmet? Is Hayden okay? How did I get here?”

Sanders clicked off her penlight and shushed her again. “Everything is alright, the general used your communicator to ask for help, and the captain and agent Abernathy pulled you from the ship. I believe Yang gave your helmet the check up, but I could go and ask.”

Torres nodded, feeling slightly calmer. “And my pajamas?” “Agent Eriksson got them from your bunk and helped me to put them on you. Now please, calm down and drink some more water. Do you need to use the bathroom?”

Ally shook her head and complied.

“Miss Torres! Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!”

A grinning general Hayden walked into the room, holding two cups of coffee. “Sanders”, he said, and handed the medic a cup with a wink.

He came up to the bed and looked at he patient with piercing eyes. “How do you feel?”

“Um, fine, I think. My head hurts, and I think I bruised a rib?”

“I’ll go tell the captain that you woke up, try not to leave the bed for now, okay?”, Sanders more so announced than asked, before she left, flashing a rare smile at the general.

Hayden immediately leaned forward, and after looking over his shoulder, he whispered “ _please_ don’t tell anyone.”

Torres frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said genuinely. Hayden squinted at her and felt bad; she did look really small in the bed with the bruises and swelling surrounding the nose cast.

“It’s not your fault,” she said, thinking he blamed himself for her fall. “The ship was a wreck, we’re lucky you didn’t fall through it when you were stranded there all alone…”

Hayden sighed and leaned back. His secret was safe. For now.

He straightened his back when he heard footsteps, and got out of the way when Dougal and Masters walked in. “We’ll talk later, good to see you’re okay!”, he said and dashed off.

“Welcome back, Allison! Ye gave us all a fright! Ye look mighty braw with a face cast, been thinking about getting me one of those”, Dougal teased, grinning from ear to ear. He sat down on the edge of the bed and squeezed her hand.

Torres chuckled and replied “that can be arranged”, while weakly pretending to punch him in the nose.

All the while, Masters stood by the foot of the bed, observing her calmly.

“Good to have you back, Torres.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How are you feeling?”

Ally sighed, realizing she was going to have to answer this question a lot. “I am alright, sir. My face hurts, I seem to have broken my nose.”

Masters nodded, he was well aware.

“Did I -“ Torres swallowed, feeling very tired, “Did I screw up our take off? Are we stuck on this moon for another month?”

Dougal smiled, and their captain shook his head. “Eriksson and myself took care of it. We’ve been on our way for over a day already.”

“We’re on our way? What about Elin’s dislocated arm?”

“No need to worry, Torres, everything went according to plan… apart from your fall, of course.”

Ally’s head was throbbing so painfully, she had to close her eyes. “Can someone turn off the light?”, she muttered while pulling the blanket up to her chin.

“Of course, you rest now. Glad to see you’re with us again, Allison”, Masters said with an awkward pat on her foot.

“Sleep well”, Dougal whispered, not sure if she could still hear them.

Doctor Sanders switched off the light and everyone left the room.

* * *

“Good morning, sleepy head”, a Swedish accent singsonged quietly, and a warm hand gently rubbed her shoulder. Ally opened her eyes and was met with Elin’s concerned eyes but friendly smile.

“Hey”, she croaked.

“Hej,” Elin replied. “I brought you chapstick and some breakfast, I figured you might be hungry!”

Torres’ growling stomach answered before she could, and with a chuckle, she pulled herself up. “Ouch, my ribs are so sore,” she complained, leaning on her side uncomfortably while gratefully applying the chapstick to her dry lips.

After a delicate trip to the bathroom, Ally sat down on her bed and enjoyed a glass of water and the yogurt with granola. She peered at herself in the reflection of her spoon, and gasped. “Holy crap, I am like ten shades of bruised!”

Elin chuckled and put her hand on Ally’s knee. “It looks worse than it is, I’m sure. Once the swelling by your eyes goes down, you’ll be good as new.”

Torres shrugged and nodded. She wished Kora was here to brush the hair from her face while cracking jokes, although she was thankful Kora didn’t have to see her like this. She’d be worried sick if she knew, even though it was only a broken nose.

With a smile, she remembered a time last year, when she cut her finger while cooking, and Kora had been grumpy and worried, but had insisted on kissing the bandaged finger. She looked at the small scar on her ring finger and ached for her girlfriend’s kisses, and how they always seemed to make time stand still.

“Ally?”

Brought back to reality, Torres looked up. “Yeah?”

Elin leaned forward after a quick glance at the door. “You were trying to tell me things when they brought you here, but you kept passing out…”

All of a sudden recalling something had been gnawing at her, in the back of her mind, Torres put down the spoon, and set the yogurt aside.

“What did I say?”

Elin lowered her voice and leaned in even closer. “You kept repeating ‘alien, he’s an alien’ and when I asked who, you said ‘necklace’. Whose necklace? Did you see an alien?”

Allison closed her eyes and tried to go back to the moment she fell. Hayden was right there with her, and she didn’t remember any one else being there. She shook her head. “I don’t know, Elin, I’m sorry. I can’t remember. Must have been a dream…”

Disappointed, Elin moved away and nodded. “A dream… that’d make more sense.”

She noticed how pale and fragile Torres looked and decided to let go of the mystery. “I think you could use another nap,” she said, and Torres nodded. “Yeah, I’m so tired. Must be the painkillers,” and she nodded at the drip bag above the nightstand. She tried to rearrange her pillows, but with her painful ribs and sore head, it was too difficult.

“Here, let me help you,” Elin offered, and quickly got off from the uncomfortable chair by the bed. She moved the pillows with her one free arm and supported Ally when she laid down. 

Ally looked up and saw the ceiling light shine around Elin’s blonde hair and through her pink ears, and suddenly it fell into place.

“It’s Hayden! _Hayden_ is not who he says he is!”, she uttered, grabbing Elin’s shirt in shock.

“The general? What do you mean?”

“His necklace came off and suddenly, his ears were green… it was really dark, but I know what I saw, Elin.”

“His necklace? Green ears? Are you sure you weren’t dreaming?”

Ally let go of Elin’s shirt, seeing spots from the excitement.

“I don’t think so…,” she mumbled before her she sank into her pillows, and drifted back to sleep.

Elin got back up, and tiptoed out of the room to leave a snoring Ally to sleep.

She headed to the kitchen with the breakfast’s remains, and saw general Hayden sitting at the kitchen table.

“Eriksson! Good… morning, is it?”, he guessed, still getting used to the daylight simulators in the ceiling, “How is our patient doing?”

Elin hesitated, and took in his broad shoulders and strong hands holding a water bottle. Other than his absolute picture of health, she could not see anything weird or special about him. It had to have been a dream. Ally did hit her head, after all.

“Good, she had some food and is mostly coherent”, she said with a chuckle.

Hayden’s hand froze mid sip, the plastic crinkling in his fist. “What do you mean?”, he wanted to know, slowly putting his water bottle back down.

“Oh nothing, she just…”, Elin wanted to explain, but his eyes were on her with an alert intensity that frightened her. “… asked to see agent Johnson, probably mixing up the missions,” she lied.

Hayden chuckled and shook his head. “She had quite a tumble, the poor thing, I wish I could have prevented it.”

“It’s not your fault, sir, it might just as well have been you both!”, Elin reassured the general, feeling her heart beat in her throat. Why did she just lie? With a forced smile, she excused herself, and went to sit in the control room, next to Masters. _Do I say something? Do I have to protect Ally? From what?_

Elin shook her head and focused on the task at hand. She was being silly; just sleep deprived and worried about her friend, that’s all.

“How is Torres?”, Masters asked without looking up from his typing on the tablet.

“She is well, sir, just very sleepy, still.”

“Good. I will check on her later today.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

A week passed, with the Pioneer well on its course to Radnem, the so-called ‘peach planet’. Wether the planet was pink or maybe had a lot of peach trees, Ally couldn’t tell from the meager notes they recovered from the S.H.I.E.L.D. archive, but she was excited to find out.

She was no longer on bed rest, and walked around with a smaller splint on her nose.

Hayden had stopped by every day, seeming increasingly nervous as she dropped little remarks to test him. She wasn’t a hundred percent sure that was she saw had really happened, but the more nervous the general seemed, the more she was convinced he wasn’t who he said he was. She did remember clear as day, how he bent over and begged her ‘not to tell anyone’ when she first woke up, which seemed more and more suspicious to her now.

The fear that he’d be angry or violent kept her from asking too many questions, at least until her nose and ribs would be healed again, but she rehearsed the interrogation in her mind repeatedly.

“Who are you _really_?” “How long have you been lying about who you are?” “ _What_ are you?” “And why keep it a secret?” Many possible answers popped up from her imagination, but nothing would be quiet as satisfying as _knowing_ the truth.

Elin seemed uneasy around the general, no matter how Ally tried to reassure her it had just been a morphine dream, so Ally planned to somehow get a one on one with Hayden, to make sure nobody else would be involved if something bad should happen.

* * *

“Torres to the control room, please”, Masters’ voice sounded over the speaker system. Ally was fixing her hair in front of the mirror, getting ready for the landing, feeling pleased the swelling had gone down significantly.

Like the members of the crew, she had planned to record a video to send back to Earth, but with the swollen eyes and bandages, she hadn’t felt up to it. Luckily, she was starting to look more like herself again with each passing day.

Maybe the people of planet Radnem would allow them to send a message a little later, when she could hide most of the bruises with make-up and ease Kora into the story of what happened, she thought to herself.

Even though it wasn’t required, Ally liked to put on the blue jumpsuit for her shifts, making a distinction between work and spare time (which she filled with research and exercise, most days, but still).

With butterflies in her stomach, she headed to the control room, knowing they’d set foot on an unknown planet within hours.

Un unexpected groan interrupted her steady pace, and she listened for it with a frown on her face. There is was again, and it sounded like Elin’s voice. Worried that her friend might be in trouble, she followed the sound of the noises, until she ended up at the storage room.

“Elin?”

No reply.

Ally pulled the door open, and rushed in.

“Elin, are you in here? Are you alright?”

To the right, there were shelves of tools and canned goods, next to the special low-water washing machine, and on the left, they had installed a sizable a coat rack with moon suits, coats and blankets hanging from the rail.

Torres frowned and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ears. Then she noticed Elin’s sling dangling from the coat rack, and hesitantly, she walked up to it. Where would Elin be?

Her curiosity got the better of her when a stifled snicker came from behind the garments, and with a brusque motion, she moved them to the side, revealing the curve of Dougal’s bare behind.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”, Torres gasped and turned her back to them, doing a quick double take over her shoulder, confirming it was indeed Elin, who was blushing fiercely in between Dougal’s arms, the contrast in skin tones accentuating their nudity. The couple laughed and clumsily tried to cover themselves with a blanket.

“Do you need anything, Ally?”, Elin asked as professionally as she could muster from underneath Dougal’s shaking chest, covering his mouth with her hand to silence his chuckles.

“I heard moaning and thought someone was maybe in trouble or in pain, but um, clearly everyone is fine, so I will be leaving now”, Torres explained, her back still turned to her naked friends.

Dougal chuckled. “I thank ye for yer concern, Torres, but we’re fine. _Bye now_!”

Ally tossed the sling on top of them and replied “You might want to continue this another time, we’re about to land!”

As if on cue, Masters’ impatient voice repeated over the speakers. “Torres to the control room at once, please.”

Allison hurried to the control room, giggling to herself and missing Kora more than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Make sure to check out the next chapter where all will be revealed! What is up with the general and what does the peach planet look like?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!  
> Ally finally finds out, once and for all, the mystery and the secrets the rescued general has been keeping...
> 
> I admit it feels like I’m talking to myself sometimes, with the small number of views, and I probably should have written about Dousy or FitzSimmons, but I love writing this story (it’s coming to an end, even) and I really do appreciate those of you that do stop by and read!!  
> I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it ❤️

  
“I’d kill for a cold beer”, Torres remarked while wiping her sweaty forehead, and Elin concurred. “We should have kept some apple juice aside, it would probably be fermenting by now,” she joked, and took a bite from the crunchy vegetables Masters bought on the market place.

It was a muggy night, and after two days of diligently taking soil samples and gathering seeds and fungi, Torres finally took the time to sit down and calmly eat while looking around. The peach planet was, as it turned out, named after the color of the sand and the sweet smell in the air. She sighed and took one of what must have been a thousand pictures by now.

With the leaves of the strangely pale trees rustling in the wind, it almost felt like summer vacation, with the scorching sun around mid day and their rolled up pant legs. Days were shorter here, closer to seventeen hours, compared to Earth’s twenty four, and it gave them all a sense of jet lag, which was eased by the abundance of new experiences and delicious food.

People on this planet looked very much like Earthlings, just rounder, with dark skin, pointy noses and shiny black eyes, and as Elin agreed, really quite beautiful with their long black hair worn in one or multiple buns.

The day before, when one of the aliens noticed Dougal sketching a flower in his notepad, they went and sat down by the flower, fixing their hair and garments to indicate they wanted to be drawn as well. Dougal smiled, wearing sunglasses and a wet towel on his neck against the burning sun, and drew the alien with a few quick lines. He ripped out the piece of paper and gifted it with a curtsy, much to the alien’s delight.

Quickly, a line had formed of Radnem occupants and their offspring, cheerfully chatting amongst themselves and posing for his drawings in turn.

Dougal chuckled and could barely keep up, but made sure to learn a few words in the process.

A small child put their little arm next to Dougal’s and looked up with a toothy grin. Dougal looked at their arms and noticed they ware the same color. “Would ye look at that”, he said, and stuck out his other arm. A few more children put their arms with Dougal’s, all were shades of the same deep brown. “Wow, we’re the same!”, he remarked at the smiling faces looking up at him.

“Same”, a child repeated, and climbed on his lap. “Yes, we’re the same,” Dougal said, allowing the young alien to try on his sunglasses. In a quick motion, the little one took his notebook and pencil and mimicked the human’s pose. “Same”, he said. The child’s parent raised their hand at Dougal and said “Siva Same” with a friendly nod.

Elin had looked on for quite some time and chuckled, “I think they think your name is Same.”

“Ha, probably. I already learnt that ‘siva’ means either ‘hello’ or ‘nice to meet ye’,” Dougal agreed with a grin, and got handed his notebook back.

“Siva?”, Elin tried bashfully, causing a wave of friendly hands to go up in response, and several voices echoed her sentiment. Elin joined down the sitting aliens and spent at least two more hours of Dougal’s drawing session learning more words in the Radnem language.

* * *

Pleased with this planet being one with a breathable atmosphere, Masters spent as much time outside of the ship as possible, getting to know some of the Radnem inhabitants, and he quite often sat down quietly next to Torres, who wrote down extensive logs about all the minerals and lifeforms she discovered.

“Sir”, Torres would nod, feeling very comfortable around her boss.

“Torres.”

“Imagine doing all this, but with a newborn baby,” she remarked, referring to their previous mission, remembering her sister in law carrying little baby Charlotte strapped against her chest.

Masters, who was there as a member of the crew, nodded and shuddered at the thought. It was bad enough he ended up being away from his little girl for over a year when the mission went awry, but observing others caring for their baby, and seeing her small squished face sticking out of the improvised baby wrap, had really broken his heart.

Agent Sousa was uncharacteristically frazzled those first days, but to be fair, he was facing potentially raising a child in space. He had to admit Agents Sousa and Johnson were a good match, though, the way they carried each burden together, a pregnancy wasn’t even that surprising…

Highly unprofessional, of course, Masters reminded himself, when he felt a smile creep up.

He cleared his throat. “Do you have some notes for me to co-sign?”

“Here you go, sir.”

* * *

Right after landing on the first day, Yang, the mechanic, attached a strap to the microscope, granting Ally and Dougal the opportunity to easily carry it around and study things they found without having to take every item with them, and thus showing respect to the people whose plants and soil it was. For many hours, they crawled around on the ground, observing small eight-legged insects and what looked like silky roots of a mushroom network.

Radnem, being quite a small planet, did not have its own ruler, but fell under King Palunk’s realm, and a team of his royal Moxan watch guards lived in one of the taller buildings on Radnem, keeping an eye on things and helping people out when there was trouble.

On a walk with Elin and captain Masters, Torres nearly bumped into one of them, and chuckled at Elin’s astonished face. Torres and Masters met Moxans on their previous mission and bowed as was Moxan tradition.

Elin, still stunned by the second pairs of arms and eyes, had to be pulled down by her sleeve, causing the Moxan guard to chuckle. “Terrans, welcome”, he said, his accent close to Australian, much like with the other Moxans they met, and bowed in return.

“Thank you”, Masters said before standing up straight again, his usually quite tall stature dwarfed by the guard’s impressive height.

“I was wondering if you could tell me about the wavelength laws on Radnem,” he asked, formal as ever.

The Moxan chuckled and mimicked Master’s pronunciation. “Radnem.”

Masters silently cursed his ginger nature when he felt his face turn red. Torres noticed and protested “how are we supposed to know? We had to translate from ancient scripture! Please teach us, so that we can respect this planet’s people.”

The Moxan guard forced a more serious expression, and taught them. “It’s pronounced ‘Rhad’.”

Softly, they practiced, accompanied by the sound of Elin’s pencil scratching in her notebook. “Rhad”, she wrote, “not Radnem”.

Elin looked up at the four-eyed giant and inquired “Is there a school or place of education here? I would love to see.”

The guard nodded and answered “yes, in fact, my mate educates there, I will introduce you. She does not speak English, in fact,” and he turned to Masters, “most people here don’t speak English. If you follow me, I can arrange for a translator who can also gift you the required wavelengths for communication with your home planet.”

Masters bowed again, their visit to Moxan still fresh on the brain, making sure to be respectful and modest. “Thank you, that would be excellent.”

A small person ran up to the guard and hid behind his legs. He looked like the children Dougal had sketched, but had a double set of arms, which he wrapped around his father (presumably), and curiously peeked at them with four shiny eyes. The guard picked him up and led the way, showing Elin the school and Masters the way to his colleague.

Torres, left to her own device, looked around. She considered having a snack, but she was still quite full from the dishes Dougal received. The people whose portraits he drew were grateful and kept bringing gifts to their plane, waving and saying “Siva Same!” as they left.

“Guess ‘siva’ means goodbye too,” Dougal had mused. “I bet it’s like ‘aloha’,” Yang remarked, looking through the dishes for the bread-like bake he loved so much.

Doctor Sanders, the medic, noticed an unusual kind of splint on a child’s leg and got invited to the nearest infirmary by the Radnems in charge, who were eager to demonstrate their medical inventions. She wasn’t seen on the ship, other than to sleep, and to dump her extensive notes on the wheely desk in the medical bay.

* * *

“Who knew an intel mission would make anthropologists of us all?”, Ally remarked when she heard footsteps behind her, assuming it was Dougal.

“Indeed,” general Hayden agreed, making Ally jump.

“I thought you were keeping an eye on the plane”, she said, trying not to sound too snippy.

“I asked Yang to stand in while I popped out to the market, if that’s alright with you?”, he teased.

Ally got her composure back and smiled. “Of course, sir, you just startled me, is all.”

Watching him walk away from her, her heart started beating fast. If Masters and Elin were away, Sanders and Dougal were busy and Yang would be distracted by one of the many movies he brought on his hard drive… that meant she’d have the place to herself, giving her a chance to look through Hayden’s personal things…

Torres headed to The Pioneer, which was parked in the shadows with a few other space ships in the allotted area. She made sure to make her steps seem casual, attracting no unwanted attention, ignoring the summersaults her stomach was making.

It did not cross her mind for a moment, what she’d do with what she’d possibly find did in the general’s room, she was purely driven by her need to know the truth.

Upon swiping her card and entering the aircraft, she greeted Yang, who was sitting at the kitchen table with his tablet. He was engrossed in a comedy, and laughed himself silly with his headphones on and back turned towards Ally, and did not reply.

Satisfied with the amount of privacy, Torres ended up in front of the door, where the sign in her own handwriting informed her of its habitant and which timezone he was on.

She tried the door handle - it wasn’t locked!

With a quick glance in either direction of the narrow hallway, she opened the door and let herself in.

Much like Master’s dorm, the place was immaculate. His bed was made so tightly, one could ice skate on it, and the small spinach sprouts stood side by side on his spotless desk in order of size.

She pulled open the closet, which held Dougal’s red sweater and her oversized band shirt, a few white cotton undergarments from the storage closet and his pair of utterly worn out boots.

Most of the time, the general wore one of the spare jumpsuits, his muscular thighs putting a strain on the seams, causing doctor Sanders to stare, but it was the better of few options for an unexpected extra crew member.

Ally kneeled down by his nightstand, the same metal box she had bolted to the bedframe, and looked at the photograph in the frame. Granted, the general looked very handsome and happy in this particular picture, but why have it framed by your bed? And if the general was indeed someone else... who was this? Did he have a twin? Or steal someone’s identity?

She squinted and turned on the reading light to take closer look. It seemed like something was behind the picture, and feverishly, she tried to remove the back of the frame.

“Allison, -“

Ally jumped up, accidentally throwing the picture frame in the air and crashing it against the desk, where it broke in several pieces.

“What are you doing here?”, Hayden asked with an illegible expression on his face, and his voice almost too controlled.

Ally, wide as a sheet, slowly stood up, her hands out in defense.

“I’m so sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to break it... but I had to know.”

The general sighed in defeat, and sank down on the bed.

“What do you want to know?”

Ally sat down next to him, staring at the broken picture frame remorsefully.

“Who are you?”, she finally asked.

Hayden leaned over and took the photograph off the floor, careful not to cut his fingers on the glass.

“This is me,” he said, handing the picture to Ally, who took it with trembling fingers.

She looked down at the picture, the nonchalantly leaning blonde man smiling back up at her.

“I don’t understand, sir,” she stuttered.

“Fold it open”, Hayden suggested impatiently.

Ally gasped when she flattened the photograph on her knee. Next to the general was an alien, a green smiling face with pointy ears and a similar casual lean.

She looked up. “This... this is you?”

Hayden nodded slowly, and pulled the necklace from underneath his shirt collar.

He looked painfully vulnerable, and Torres put her hands on his. “No, you don’t have to. It’s none of my business, I never should have barged in here...”

Hayden’s lips curled into a wry smile and he shook his head.

“This was never supposed to go on for so long, Allison.”

She stepped over the broken glass and said “well then, let me at least lock the door to keep any nosey people out”, and then grinned, aware of the irony. “Other nosy people, that is...”, she added, and locked the door.

Ally turned around to the nervously breathing general, the glass crunching underneath her boot, and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

With unsure fingers, Hayden opened the clasp in his neck, and took off the necklace. It sparkled in the light, and breathlessly, Ally held out her hand. Agonizingly slow, he unfurled his fingers, until finally, the silver chain with its pendant dangled loose and fell into Ally’s palm.

Ally made a fist and didn’t dare to look up. This moment felt like every undressed date and uncomfortable conversation she ever had, combined.

A voice less deep than the general’s usual timbre spoke. “Look at me.”

Trusting eyes, rivaling hers in the shade of emerald green, were the first thing she saw, and when she allowed her gaze to wander over his emaciated face, she saw, that yes, his skin was green and had a smooth reptilian texture, there were ridges on his chin and faded stripes on his forehead- but this was still the face of the kind man they rescued from a lonely fate.

A whisper escaped her lips. “What are you?”

Hayden blinked his wide lizard-like eyes and felt naked.

Torres blinked in response, desperately trying not to gawk, and laid her hand on his.

“What are you?”, she repeated in a warmer tone, inviting him to share.

“I’m a Skrull,” he said quietly. “Skrulls are a race from the Drox system in the Andromeda Galaxy. You may have heard from us, some Skrulls were on Earth in... I’m not sure, a while ago.”

Still getting used to this other voice and smooth scaly hand underneath hers, Torres nodded.

“Are all of you...”, she gestured vaguely with the necklace.

“Shapeshifters? No. It takes special talents and training.”

Her mind was boggling. “Shapeshifter? So you could -“

Before she could finish her sentence, Hayden took her shape, from the one escaped curl on her forehead to the bruises around her nose, and shifted back to himself again.

Ally gasped and chuckled in amazement. “That was... surreal. How do you do it?”

Hayden smiled, feeling relieved that he had to lie to one less person.

“If someone is nearby, I can take their shape whenever I want. When someone has passed away, or I have to do it from memory... that’s a whole other story.”

His smile disappeared, and his skinny spine poked small peaks in the fabric of his shirt as he slouched.

He took the picture of himself and the blonde man and held it close to his face.

“This”, he pointed at the human in the photograph, “this is general Reginald Hayden.”

“Then who are you?”, Torres dared to ask, feeling her empathy grow for the fraud sat beside her.

“My name is Agos”, and realizing that it answered barely any underlaying questions, he continued, telling her about the war on Skrullos, how the Deviant Skrulls drove away the first Skrull generations, or ‘Unworthies’ as they were called, and slaughtered almost everyone. The real Hayden, then still a young crew member, traveled with a team, trying to help end the war and violence, and landed briefly. Along with several Skrulls and their children, Agos was taken to safety by this brave team of scientists.

“I felt bad for leaving my home behind, even though there was nothing I could have done, the Deviants are absolutely ruthless. Reg and I became close friends, and when we dropped off the others on a safe planet nearby, I stayed on and joined the crew.”

Ally nodded, barely able to digest it all, and wondered “so they were okay with an alien crew member? That’s so cool!”

“Um, no, not exactly,” Agos explained, shrugging his bony shoulders. “I had to take the shape of whoever was asleep at the time to not be found out, causing a lot of complicated situations, of course. I slept on Hayden’s floor and took his shape if I wanted to go get something to eat. The crew must have thought Reg had quite the appetite”, he chuckled, remembering it vividly.

Torres sensed something in his tone, and tilted her head.

“You loved him.”

A lonely tear fell on the photograph.

“One cold night, I laid awake shivering, and without saying a word, he took his blanket and joined me on the floor. He rubbed my back until I was warmed up, spooned me and went to sleep. I had never felt such acceptance or friendship... I’ll never forget that first night.”

Torres looked from his sad green face to the mess on the floor.

“And I broke your picture frame! Oh god, I feel like such a nosy dumb ass.”

Agos smiled. “No, what you are is a goofball and a friend. During the repetitive hours I spent alone in the crashed ship, I would imagine a friend and talk to them all day long, trying to keep my wits about me. I’m glad I have someone real to talk to, Allison.”

“I’m just happy I finally cracked the case,” Ally joked, feeling his tender heart beat with such sadness, she couldn’t bare it. “Not a superhero, then!”

He shook his head. “Just a man from another planet, I’m afraid. With some tricks up my sleeve,” he said with a smirk, and flashed Ally’s face on his own for a second.

“Hey, cut it out! You can’t just shift-shape into me without asking first”, Torres chuckled and playfully poked him in the side, causing them both to hiss in pain.

“Okay, I bruised my ribs, what is up with you?”, she asked, frowning at his reaction.

“My whole body hurts, Allison. I ate leafs for years, it’s a miracle I survived...”

“Oh of course, I’m so sorry. I can ask Sanders for some fluids or extra rations, if you need to get your strength back up...”

A knock on the door startled them both, and Ally hastened at the door. “Just a second!”

She threw the necklace at Agos and saw him squeeze his eyes shut before he turned back into the general, looking exceptionally strong and well fed again, all of a sudden.

“Yeah, you’re definitely gonna need to tell me more about how you do that,” Ally whispered, and unlocked the door.

Masters’ sunburnt nose caught the light when he stepped into the room.

“I came to see if you wanted to record a message for the people back home, sir, and you too, of course, Torres”, he said. He frowned. “What happened here?,” he inquired with a nod at the glass on the floor. His eye fell on the picture in Agos’ hand, which was folded human-side up.

Torres shrugged, and lied “the general wanted to borrow something and when I came to drop it off, I accidentally knocked his frame off the nightstand.”

“Alright, well, you have till ten o’clock to send a message, so no rush.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Torres. Sir.” Masters nodded at either of them, a little suspicion creeping in when he noticed Ally’s flushed cheeks.

“Rodney,” Agos mirrored Master’s tone with a twinkle in his eyes.

“That’s captain Rodney, sir”, Masters replied and turned around.

“Did Rodney just make a little joke?”, Ally whispered, causing Agos to snicker.

* * *

After a quick break for coffee and a piece of baked goods, Agos, still disguised as the general, and Ally went for a walk. Agos desperately needed some clothes and medicine, so they went by the market and a pharmacy. A small Radnem lady worked at the pharmacy, and she immediately grabbed his hand, telling him in broken english he needed to eat. A little creeped out, Torres frowned and tried to understand how this woman knew.

The lady ignored her completely, however, and instead, dug around in one of the shop’s many drawers.

It didn’t take long before her little hand lifted a glass bottle in the air, which on closer inspection turned out to have a label with a cartoonish Skrull face on it. Agos gasped and showed Ally.

“Can she see you?”, Ally whispered in awe, raising her hands in finger quotes.

“I think so...”

“Drink please”, the lady demanded. Without any hesitation, he drank the whole vial in one long sip and smiled. “Thank you”, he said, and held the woman’s small hands in his.

Squinting at the sun, they stood outside of the pharmacy.

“Where to now?”, Ally asked, getting tired from the walk and burning to know more about Agos and Reginald Hayden.

“Let’s drop these off”, Agos lifted the burlap tote bag with his new garments, “and then decide, okay?”

He pleasantly stretched. “Man, I have not felt this good in ages.”

“What was that drink?”

“My mom called it lizard oil, I’m not sure what’s in it, but she made us drink it once every 12 days when we were growing up.”

“Well, you seem better,” Ally remarked graciously, even though he looked the same to her.

“Wait ‘till you see the real me, Allison, you won’t believe your eyes.”

“But if you have this magical lizard oil... why don’t you always carry gallons of it around, wherever you go?”

“I merely escaped my death in Skrullos, I did not exactly have time to bring loads of the stuff with me when I left. I honestly thought I’d never see it again!”

Ally nodded, her ribs feeling very sore and her feet weighing her down. She noticed they were near the tree she and Masters had lunch the day before.

“You can tell me the rest later, yeah?”, she suggested, and plopped down in the shade of the tree.

Agos sat down. “I can tell you now, and then we have a siesta?”, he suggested, feeling the strong urge to finally unload and tell someone his story, and her expressive face was a welcome audience compared to the years of utter loneliness. Their friendship deepened with every secret he revealed, and he loved her dimples when she smiled.

He propped up the bag of new clothes against the tree and Ally gratefully rested her back against it.

“Okay, shoot. I’m all ears!”

Agos chuckled and leaned back.

“Alright, where was I...”

“Reginald hid you in his bunk.”

“Ah yes, of course. Reg and I became inseparable, and I fell helplessly in love. I counted the minutes of his shift until he’d be back in his room, with me. For a while, I had no idea he loved me the way I loved him, but when it seemed our plane was about to crash... needless to say, truths were spoken.”

His eyes glazed over, remembering the young Hayden and how he grabbed his hands, not caring what others thought and declared his love for him. Not wanting to die in a plane crash as anyone else but himself, Agos had revealed his true face to the rest of the crew, and answered Hayden’s adamant kisses. The pilot had managed to land the plane on a body of water, and they survived.

“But he never took it back, not a word of his declarations, which he could have easily done when we were out of danger. When I was asked to leave, on grounds of me being a sneaky stowaway, Hayden left with me, and we lived in New York for quite a few years. Outside, I’d take his shape and people assumed we were twins, and no one was the wiser.”

Ally grinned. “You two must have been quite the sight!”

“Oh, you should have seen us at parties, we were the belles of the ball” Agos reminisced fondly.

“But then, the itch became too much.”

“To go back to space?”, Torres recognized, for having felt the exact same, no matter how happy and fulfilled she felt in Kora’s arms.

Agos nodded. “We had been training during all the New York years, and when we managed to get in contact with S.H.I.E.L.D., they were happy to take us on. Well, him. They didn’t know there was two of us...”

He shook his head at how stupid they had been. “We could have just asked, they knew about aliens at S.H.I.E.L.D., but we were scared we’d be separated, and lied. Reg worked his way up, and started to care much more about status than I ever did. I was no agent, I was a fool in love, who’d do anything to be near him...”

Ally’s small hand rested on his upper arm. “If it’s too painful...”

“No, I want to tell someone. Keeping a secret is a very lonely business. Unless you’re bored by my droning on, of course!”

Curly hair escaped Ally’s messy ponytail when she shook her head. “No, please continue!”

“We, that is to say, Reg, got promoted a couple of times, and soon he was a general and had a fleet of his own. We traveled through the galaxy, making quite a splash with the inexhaustible general! He got strict with me, telling me what I could and could not say when I walked around looking like him, making sure I wouldn’t embarrass him...

It caused some friction between us, and the job kept him so preoccupied, the only time I ever really looked into his eyes anymore was when I looked at myself in the mirror. Disguised as him, of course.

I was broken hearted and about to leave, when he got sick.”

Ally raised her eyebrows. “Sick? He didn’t die on the moon with the others?”

Agos sighed. “No, he did.”

Almost annoyed with himself, he wiped his wet eyelashes.

“The first time we realized he had more than a cold was when I took his shape, and I noticed his uniform was loose on me. The medic took a few blood tests, and the results confirmed our worst fears.

I held his head in my lap when he cried, feeling guilty for my sense of relief.”

“Relief?”

“I thought we could go home together, and I could be myself again, instead of a weak echo of the great general Hayden. But instead, he begged me to continue to be him, to carry out the heavy tasks and go on missions in his name. You know, for his reputation and legacy.

And at first, I took his shape like always, but the more he faded away, the worse we both looked. That is when he dug up the picture that you saw today. ‘This man, I want you to be this man again,’ he said.

Shifting into an image of someone is much harder than simply masking myself in a reflection, and it took me a lot of effort to learn how to do it. Old Skrull scriptures mentioned a kind of amulet, made with hair and the hand writing of the person whose shape you wanted to take. This way, you could borrow the face of people nowhere near you, and for a much longer time. Normally, I’d shift back into myself if I ever fell asleep, but with the amulet, I could keep the shape for as long as I wanted, once I managed to do it. Quite illegal in Skrull laws, of course, but we went and did it anyway.”

Torres nodded, she could barely imagine how stressful their lives must have been.

“We melted a lock of his hair in this pendant”, he tapped on the necklace, “and he wrote me endless letters to give me enough of his handwriting. It started out as functional writings, but the weaker he got, the more they turned into love letters, and I carried those around in the soles of my boots...”

More tears ran across the late general’s face.

“If I wore the necklace and focused, it became fairly easy to look like the Hayden in the photograph. His hair was blonde from the sunshine back then, and he worked out 6 days a week, hence these tree trunks”, Agos chuckled through his tears, slapping his thick thighs.

“I thought it’d be hard for him to no longer recognize himself in the masked version, as he withered away, but I believe he loved seeing an ‘ideal’ version of himself and of course, the impression it made on the crew. Of which your captain Masters was a part, by the way! Rodney was a good young man, eager to fulfill tasks with a seldom seen precision. We knew he had a baby back home, so we made sure to only take him on shorter and safer missions.

Fast forward a few years: I was now general Hayden full time, and warmed Reg’s body every night, and when treatment didn’t work, I got him a room with a window for one last mission into space...”

“And he never came home”, Ally understood.

Agos nodded and cried silently. “He died from lack of oxygen on Wyfen’s Moon, just like the rest of the crew... and I carried him to the cave for a burial. He weighed next to nothing at that point...”

Ally sat up and wrapped her arms around him. “I’m so sorry, Agos. Is there anything I can do?”, she asked quietly, and rocked his large body back and forth like he was a small child. He closed his eyes and let himself be comforted for the first time in years.

From the other side of the tree, a little rustling sound caught Ally’s attention.

It was Masters, with the palest face she had ever seen, who was having a jet-laggy nap against the tree before they sat down and woke up from their conversation. He’d accidentally eavesdropped for lord knows how long.

He stood still, awkwardly trying to decide what to do. On the one hand he was furious this was kept a secret from him, and he felt betrayed by the man he had looked up to for years, but on the other hand he could taste the loneliness and heartbreak experienced by the man on the other side of the tree.

Ally tried to shoo him away without making Agos aware, but Masters kneeled down by the pair of them.

“Rodney?”, Agos shot up, rubbing his tear stained face.

“Is it true?”

“Rodney...”

“No tell me, sir. Is it true?” Masters mouth had disappeared in a harsh narrow line.

Agos searched for words and looked so utterly helpless that Torres tried to help him, but Masters broke her off before she could speak.

“General Hayden is dead?”

Agos nodded and brushed his cheeks dry.

“And you are... not him?”

Agos shook his head.

“And you carried around this secret for how many years?”

“Too many.”

Masters nodded and stretched his long legs.

Agos got to his feet and looked Masters in the eyes.

“It was me, Rod, you worked for me. You only met Hayden once. It has always been me,” Agos disclosed the final bit of truth, knowing it was what Masters needed to know.

The final bit of upset in Masters swirled away like someone pulled out the plug in a bathtub.

Agos saw his features soften, and took off his necklace in a spontaneous whim. Ally raised her hand and he dropped it in her palm without even looking, and this gesture of trust really moved her.

A green reptilian humanoid stood in front of Masters, his skin gleaming in the scattered sunbeams shining through the tree branches, and bright purple stripes were now clearly visible on his forehead. Must be the ‘lizard oil’, Ally thought when she noticed he did look much better.

Masters blinked, looked up and down at the green arms and head sticking out of the white t-shirt, and stuck out his hand.

“Rod Masters.”

With emotion still vibrating in his words, Agos shook Master’s pale freckled hand with his smooth scaly one.

“Agos Pedros, nice to meet you.”


End file.
